sonofabird's Xanga

Monday, September 28, 2009

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 03:22:18 GMT

rant 240: what happened to you, child stars?

I remember Dickie Roberts with David Spade. Not that it was particularly funny, but it was inevitably considering the sheer number of child stars who wound up with, shall we say, "mixed" careers. Everything that's happened with Danny Bonaduce, Gary Coleman, etc. just sort-of built up this wonderful Hollywood machine:

Phase 1: be adorable.
Phase 2: receive adoration
Phase 3: shatter the reputation by growing up
Phase 4: act like the problem is that you were famous and made millions while other kids just shattered their adorability without being in the spotlight.
Phase 5: profit.

Bonaduce, Coleman, Mackulay Culkin, Drew Barrymore, Ralphie from A Christmas Story, the Olsen twins, Haley Joel Osment, Corey Heim - hell, I would even argue Malcom Jamal Warner (nothing criminal here, just a messed-up role on Weeds) - all set the bar pretty high (or low).

But now we have Kirk Cameron. Instead of drugs, Kirk is giving away copies of Origin of Species with a creationist introduction at colleges. Um...praise Jesus, I guess? The only thing dumber than this is that the news article I read felt compelled to actually interview a Professor about it.

What's next for his publishing company? Ben Franklin's Autobiography with an introduction arguing Franklin was really a stand-up Christian? The Kama Sutra with an introdution about the importance of Christian marriage? Thus Spake Zarathustra with an introduction by the pope? Principia Mathmatica, with interspliced reminders that it's only true if God wills it? This is not why we have public domain.

I don't know about you, but I prefer my child stars overdosing on heroin instead of overdosing on Christ. I'm Christian. I think religion is a great thing. Selling warped copies of a classic with half-baked science isn't.

Give me Jody Sweetin's self-destruction over Candice Cameron's Christian home-schooling any day of the week. Better yet: a child star who turns out completely normal.

Anyway, life ticks on. School is lousy. Here's to striking it rich before I have to find a job in 3 years.

We got our TV hooked up today. It stormed for the first time in weeks and we lost the reception. It's like getting a really cool present for Christmas you can't play with for an hour at 6 pm. On the bright side, I didn't have TV yesterday to watch the Illinois game.

I did, however, find enough time to catch Pawn Stars on the History Channel. I hate when I see something and think "man, that would be a cool," because they show these guys buying up all sorts of cool stuff. Of course, in real life you have be certified and have a buttload of capital and inventory, not to mention a willingness to be ripped off and possibly shot at. I know the neighborhood I live in. Still, it never fails when I see something cool on TV I think "man, that wouldn't be bad to do at all." I think the right show would convince me being a sewer maitenence worker or gravedigger would be totally awesome. "...and Chester has never had to buy a suit because he just waits until the right size comes along!"

I can't believe I spent a good chunk of this rambling about child stars and their extremes. I might as well start watching Grey's Anatomy.

9 minutes of youtube fun, now with patriotism! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZW3TazHW3E (skip to 4 minutes)

Friday, September 11, 2009

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 23:55:26 GMT

rant 239: no, stan, i did not start 9/11

So with another 9/11 passing - this is my 8th, how about you? - I can't help but notice that the conspiracy theories are still alive and well kicking on the internet, including none other than Charlie Sheen:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4559472852690653060#

Weird, isn't it? My response to this is threefold. First, for an intellectual response, see this, including the Noam Chomsky video:

http://www.debunking911.com/massivect.htm

For a simple, eloquent, and honest response, watch this:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/103766

There's so much genuine retardation in 9/11 conspiracy discussion it's really not worth time. Controlled demolition? Are you kidding? They take massive amounts of manpower to set up, and Newtonian physics explains pretty much everything you need to know about why a giant tower goes "boom-boom-boom-boom" and falls vertically. Yeah, there was probably some misinformation floating around on 9/11/01, which makes it exactly like every other major multifaceted news event in history. Sheesh. Put your time, and your Nobel-quality physics degrees, towards something truly useful, like fixing our shattered banking system or getting a health care plan that sha-zams its way into paying for itself while beating free-market capitalism.

Anyway, last time I mentioned the joy of riding through the elevated train system through parts of town a non-college educated person would call the ghetto. But since I've read Marx and American Apartheid, I think "fruits of institutionalized racism and class-ism."

Either way, I've noticed some of the clothes poor blacks/Mexicans/heroin-laced white people (I'm sorry if this sounds bad, but really, there's no tactful way of putting it without being dishonest) wind up with are like a mini time-capsule. Case in point would be that in the last two days, I've seen a Jordan USA 9 jersey (obviously faded and not a rebuy due to the HOF election) and a Sammy Sosa jersey. To some, it's a 90s flashback; to others, it's what one could wear that beats the stuff from the resale shop. Tomayto, tomahto.

Between the daily dose of sociology and a few select law cases we've been reading, it's made me think again that all the crap we've done to try and help people from the 60s-on has been a giant ball of wishful failure. And now we're going to have cheap, easy health care for all. Yippee.

That's too much politics, but there's a lot of shit being thrown around right now. Now for something fun:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DStIMJ9_8_c

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:53:50 GMT

rant 238: welcome back to illinois

So I'm now back to being a resident of metropolitan Chicago, this time west of downtown, so I have a new el line, a new batch of middle class-suburban stores, a new Target/Home Depot, and a new zip code strangely like my old one. Best of all, I no longer live in St. Louis. It has its charms, but it also has severe drawbacks, most of which rest in that it has both the disadvantages of being a small city like Champaign or Bloomington (there's very little in the way of interesting) while also having the disadvantages of being in a big city (polluted as hell, crime, poverty, and a corrupt police department) without fully getting the advantages of either. Also, it might be the worst pizza city in America.

I "started" classes this week, even though they had us go through 3 classes during orientation week. I actually blew off a bit of orientation to do reading assignments so that my normal life of going to large stores and watching movies wasn't otherwise intruded upon. I also find it amusing that, according to a required book, law school orientation is supposed to give you enough motivation to get through three years, but I didn't really want to go on the third day because I was sick of listening to people tell us the same things over and over again ("it's a good idea to read your email!")

The last two days I've been reminded as to why I love the el vs. listening to NPR or 70s rock.

News radio hilarity: "Oh my gosh, the announcer totally said Robert Kennedy died of a brain tumor!" Not much to work with here, right? Granted, NPR has their humorous funny moments, but they're always couched in that left-moderate, pbs-friendly chuckling tone, the "I'm so clever I must have written for Atlantic Monthly once" or "I have a master's in something very important."

Train hilarity, Day 1: I saw a 60-year old, straight-laced businessman reading Rolling Stone magazine. I think I've written before about how far Rolling Stone has fallen, but how in the hell can you claim to be the relevant voice of 20-something rock and roll rebellion and be read by 60-year old Chicago Loop businessmen? Isn't that a fundamental violation? If it's not, I found it amusing nonetheless. No wonder Reader's Digest is doing poorly - they're losing audience to want-to-be hipster 60-year olds. I guess that's what you can expect when you're a music magazine and your most notable writer is your wholly mediocre 55+ year-old film critic.

Train hilarity, Day 2: The green line runs from downtown to the United Center to Garfield Park to Oak Park. If you don't know Chicago, that means you get a wide swatch of humanity. Anyway, I happened to sit in the back of the train and watch this nice, elderly, voted-for-Obama-'cause-it's-proper woman sit near the door. The next stop a Dave Chapelle look-a-like, a Fat-Ablert look-a-like, and Elwood Blues' balck cousin got on with copious uamounts of McDonalds and expletives. You know you're in for good conversation when 2 of the first 5 words spoken start with "n-i-g" and it's loud enough for the whole car to hear. It's even better when the wise-crackin' elderly black guy gets on and they start telling stories about people being stupid. The best is when they mention a girl they know and "I wish that bitch would croak so we could roll her ashes in a blunt and smoke it" while the elderly white woman just keeps the same look on her face the entire time.

God, I missed the trains.

As a closing note, my mom brought me a "copyright infringement notice" that was sent from their internet company dated from when I was staying at their house. I'm not going to lie - I download movies. I won't bore my many readers with why I believe what I download (which is not, mind you, hot new releases or current TV shows) is both legal and moral, suffice to say that I know most courts and legislatures disagree with me. They have a right to do so. They're wrong, but they have a right to be wrong.

What isn't right is claiming copyright infringement on a work in the public domain. From the Mediacom notice:

Name of Work: Charade (1963)
IP Address: xxx.xx.xxx.xx
Date: 2 Aug 2009 07:19:34 GM@
Reporting Agency: NBC UNIVERSAL

Um...yeah.... From IMDB:

"This film is public domain due to the failure to put the then-required copyright notice in the released print. The supposed copyright notice in the film failed to include the text "Copyright", "Copr." or "©", as was needed by pre-1989 US law (only the year and supposed copyright holder were listed)."

Furthermore, it's been released by multiple different companies over the last decade because of this (which a simple Amazon search reveals).

If someone has claimed copyright infringement when I was sharing Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting, fine. You'd be legally correct, I suppose, if you're immoral. But you can't claim infringement if you have no more ownership of the copyright than I do. Fuck you, Jeff Zucker.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 03:21:37 GMT

rant 237: let's be honest...

Those "evony" ads that are on here and elsewhere are hyper-annoying. Every time I see one I can't help but remember that at one point in time the online game company was going to call it "civony" but they were sued promptly by Sid Meijer and his Civilization games. I also can't help but think that attractive lady saying "it's ready, my lord" is selling sex to people who are interested in playing online video games. Let's face it, that only works in Leisure Suit Larry, and that's only because it's funny, although the poker games where you reveal naked chicks sure were a hit in the mid 90s.

As a kid I always wondered why people didn't move more. As I see it, there's 10+ areas of the United States I'd love to live in. Having to pick one and hang there for fifty years seemed boring. After moving my stuff yesterday, I'm ready to not move anymore, or perhaps give up all my possessions. I think people who live with the intent of having no money are naive idiots, but I could totally see cutting my possessions under the right circumstances. But let's be honest, this is probably because most of my stuff is worthless junk. If I owned a Renoir or a Steinway, you can bet your ass I'd cart them around.

Speaking of hippie lifestyle choices, I'm annoyed at Starbucks even though I don't drink coffee. Apparently, Starbucks has opened a Seattle "independent" cafe. That is, Starbucks owns it and reaps its profits and supplies its stuff, but it has completely removed its name from the establishment (the website, streetlevelcoffee.com [cute, right?] has a GMAIL address). Basically, what Starbucks is doing here is trying to get business from those silly people who hate Starbucks. They're apparently testing the idea now and plan on opening other "stealth" cafes if the one in Seattle is able to pull in enough suckers off the street.

I can't be the only one who's annoyed by this, can I? I understand they want to reach out to people who have formed opinions about what Starbucks is and why they prefer locally-owned stores. I just think there's ways of doing that without trying to pass yourself off as exctly what you aren't, which is what a GMAIL address does. I don't think corporate America or even Starbucks are evil, I just think it's dishonest, insulting, and shameful to not put your name on a product so as to dupe people who have formed political/cultural opinions about you. If you have that bad of an image problem, change yourself, don't try to hide behind a mask. What if Toyota started selling trucks under the name Smith Motors in the 80s? Or if Wal-Mart set up Mom-and-Pop shops and paid Pakistani couples to "man the store" while stocking it with Wal-Mart's stuff and hiding the fact the profits are going to Wal-Mart? I have nothing against these companies, it's just an underhanded, immoral practice that crosses any respectible boundary of marketing.

Well, I'm out. Literally - I'm going to go outside and try and break in my own house so I can claim to be a victim of profiling when arrested and get a free trip to Washington D.C. AND a free beer (Bud Light? Seriously, Barack? That thing I drink because I'm young, poor, and cheap? If you're going European, at least get a Heinaken. Otherwise, get a Fat Tire, or better yet, an Old Style, or better still, crack an old can of Billy Beer, I'm sure there's a case in the House somewhere). Also, I can't wait to point out the irony of two wealthy, well-known, powerful, and influential black men teaching the blue-collar white police officer who teaches a racial profiling course that we have a long way to go on race relations, all while suggesting they have a commercialized cheap beer at a mansion with a full-service 5-star chef and a wine list second to none.

It's hard for three people to collectively botch an issue multiple times in multiple different ways, but I'm pretty sure they did it.

Youtube zen: I finally wound up watching Brokeback Mountain, which means things like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uwuLxrv8jY) are now mildly funnier, although I think th sheer number of parodies on youtube is incredibly lame.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:58:14 GMT

rant 236: oh, lifelong dreams are never appreciated

Today I fulfilled a lifelong dream/goal and quit my job. It wasn't nearly as dramatic as Kevin Spacey's in American Beauty, and I even took the classy route of notifying them in advance. I also ate my good person wheaties and sent a nice email to the completely incompetent contacts at this one specific client I can't stand (thank you, your new contact is..., best wishes, blah blah). It beat the alternative: "I can't believe 15% of the country is unemployed and someone as fucking stupid and lazy as you somehow is holding a job."

I feel like I have a lot to do before school, but I really don't when I start to think about it. I have a book to read. And somehow I have to find medical records that the doctor's office can't find to prove I've been immunized and I'm not running around carrying rubella. This wouldn't be worth mentioning at all except for which doctor's office happened to misplace them...

I was a pretty good worker at my job, but occasionally I found things to do that didn't involve work. One example would be that when I started training others and our activity fell slightly I found a text copy of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (as opposed to Ernest Hemingway's Pride and Prejudice, where all five Bennett daughters have miscarriages and Darcy runs around talking about how God is dead because his genitals were blown off in a training excercise) and read all 61 chapters off-and-on over a two week period. I wish I had done this earlier, because it's not like I was any less productive than before, and now I've read a classic of English literature. What else could I have read? Vanity Fair? David Copperfield? The Notebook?

Anyway, one of my favorite things to do was create crazy dialogue-based scenarios. Yesterady, Melissa and I were talking about Microsoft and how Bing.com's bird's eye view on its map page is like a one-up from Google's street view on its maps page (these are the kind of lame things you notice when your internet is restricted).

Google person 1: Damn, we must come up with an answer to bird's eye view.
Google person 2: How about Google People? We get in our car and take a picture of every man, woman, and child and index them on google!
Google person 1: Great idea, I'll get the company hybrid!
Google person 2: Hehe and marharhar! I love road trips. Let's get some udon noodles from the cafeteria!
~~~~~
Microsoft person 1: Damn, we must come up with an answer to Google People.
Microsoft person 2: How about BingInside? We get Bill's ultra-xray camera and scope pictures of everyone's house, naked or clothed, and put it online!
Microsoft person 1: Why don't we just use the company's private archives we've been storing for a decade? We've already got pictures inside every house. Remember the project to secretly hardwire every desktop to Microsoft HQ?
Microsoft person 2: But I wanted to use the camera...
~~~~~
Google person 1: Damn, we must come up with an answer to BingInside.
Google person 2: How about Google Organ? We get in our car and force everyone to do a full-body MRI and X-ray, and then we put them in an online index searchable by disease, organ quality, blood type, etc!
Google person 1: Great idea, I'll get the company MRI van!
Google person 2: Hehe and marharhar! I love road trips. Let's get some endive salad from the cafeteria!
~~~~~
Microsoft person 1: Damn, we must come up with an answer to Goggle Organ.
Microsoft person 2: How about BingDead? We do everything Goggle People and Google Organ do, but we include dead people as well!
Microsoft person 1: Great idea, I'll get the company time machine.
Microsoft person 2: But I wanted to dig for bodies...

Yep, this is one of the small reasons I made it through 10 hour days. Some people do it by standing aroudn the coffee-maker and talking for 30 minutes that pass by inconspicuously. Meh, to each his own.

As a closing note, apparently there is a large contingent of Harry Potter fans who are upset because the latest movie differs dramatically from the book. Hoenstly, what did you expect? The books are like 500+ pages long. The movies are a completely different medium, and with who's in charge of the movies, you should be lucky all the main characters are still there. It's the nature of the beast that when you sell the rights to movies you often get a different story. It's really hard to do direct adaptations of detailed literature. Watchmen tried and the result wasn't nearly as good as the original. If anything, HP fans should be lucky the movies seem to correlate well to the books.

Anyway, I'm out. Enjoy this blast from the 90s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi3YjJzjz5Y

Favorite quote from said clip: "this is the 90s. it doesn't matter anymore." Also dig the Joey Buttafucco reference at 1:20 or so.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 03:46:59 GMT

rant 235: truth is sadder than fiction

One thing about the internet is that sites/companies generally excel at doing one thing, and while many have tried having an all-encompassing site (facebook? google? who will be first for global domination?), most people still go to Yahoo/Hotmail/etc. for email, MapQuest or Google Maps for directions, and Twitter for communicative retardation one line at a time.

As such, I was not aware Xanga (my blogging site, and nothing more) has private messaging. I'm still not sure where it is, but on my main page it said I had a message, so I clicked, and here was this gem from June 21st:

My name is Angela ;)!
I really feel shy, but I have 2 say u, Sonofabird, that you are just so coool )... It was a miracle to detect ur page but currently I am sure it`s a fate))
You`r the best... but I`m sure that in your life u`l impress me more and more!! ))
btw that`s incredible... but I`m from too!
I`d like 2 keep up a friendship with u, Sonofabird!
This site removes all the time my photos... (
the most revealing pics I save here: http://menmatcher.com/account/85802852/
Sonofabird, I hope you`ll take a look at them and will write me something to start our challenge :))
ki$$ u tenderly :)

There's some things in life that just don't require commentary, save for the fact that (a) I lost intelligence reading that and (b) I'm oddly inspired to exclusively write like the in the future in a vain attempt to get people to pay me money. So without further adieu...

My name is Fabian ;)!
I really feel shy, but I have 2 say u, username, that you are just so cooool)...even though i totally talk like erick cartamn its like totally not ironic coooool? it was a miracle to detect ur page cuz it took me a hour to function find the searchbar but I'm currently sure its fate, tho I might change my mine tomorrow.
You'r the best, even tho i don't know you...and u'l impress me more and more, with all new ways of friendly writing apostrophe words. we'l be awesome! ;>)(*
btw, that's incredible...but i'm from too! where no one has to put objects prepositions with!
so yeah, [username] go here, there's like porn and stuff ;)

If I wanted to read half-written crap, I'd go to Perez Hilton's site.

Speaking of crap, today I watched The House Bunny. Was it the worst movie I've ever seen? Not by a long shot, but it depresses me that the same people who wrote Legally Blond decided to take Elle Woods, make her more bimboish, and have her teach the nerd girls how to be attractive in a cliched, unrealistic college campus. This same writing duo wrote Ten Things I Hate About You and She's the Man, both of which are decent modern adaptations of Shakespeare. So you know they've read something besides Hollywood periodicals and yet... it's an Adam Sandler production that hired Rumer Willis and Colin Hanks.

I sometimes wonder at the rate of decline for writers. At that rate, they'll be writing star vehicles for Jack Black's kid produced by Friedberg and Seltzer in 20 years.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 01:54:39 GMT

rant 234: get ye advertising off my korean-run journal site!

So I log on today and click on my previous entry and what is it that I see to the left of my text? A long, vertical advertisement for none other than Sarah M. Palin. Ah, such is the beauty of this ball of cables. I devote an entire paragraph to slamming the woman and telling her to creep into the woods and her advertising winds up on my page through absolutely no effort on either my part or hers. You can't get that sort of irony with the old-school printing presses. No, siree, if you wrote an editorial highly criticizing someone, usually they had the good sense not to buy adertising space RIGHT NEXT TO IT. God bless you, oh great cyberreality we're all slowly sinking into. I'm not kidding; with smartphones apparently everyone is about 5 years away from being fully connected at all times and answering email instantly. I can't wait.

While I'm talking about annoying large mouse-like things with undue amounts of money and power, I'd like to complain about Disney for a moment.

Last weekend Melissa and I got a copy of Spirited Away, the acclaimed Japanese cartoon. The US rights to Spirited Away were bought by Disney while some of the Pixar guys pushed it while Disney and Pixar were more in bed with each other than they are now. Instead of just releasing the film with subtitles like The Criterion Collection does, Disney decided to redub an English soundtrack with James Marsden, John Ratzenberger, and a variety of other actors. At face value, I don't think this is an offensive concept; what is offensive is when you ALTER AND ADD LINES. Yes, Disney decided that even though Spirited Away was the highest grossing film of all-time in Japan, it needed a little "Disnification" and therefore it substantially changes the denoumont of the film to more resemble The Lion King 6: Simba Applies for Medicare or Life-Size 2: Tyra Strikes Back. We had no idea and naively watched it as-it-came, then later found out from an internet discussion that it's a different experience if you watch it with Japanese audio and standard subtitles.

Here's the thing: people who search out Spirited Away are likely not watching their first foreign film nor their first cartoon. The benefit of changing an ending just so it might be slightly more appealing to American children and drugged-up parents is minimal compared to the damage done with people who want to see the film because it was acclaimed so broadly in Japan. It was a better movie with the original Japanese and Disney had no busienss Disnifying it. Christ, it's about a girl who goes into a land of pagan spirits and gets sucked into working in a bathhouse while falling in love with a guy/dragon who is imprisoned by a Japanese witch after her parents have been transformed into pigs. This isn't Pocahontas here, and changing a few lines isn't going to make it any more palatable to kids into whatever shit Disney is peddling now.

While I'm at it, here's a few more things Disney has ruined/tried to ruin:

1. Their reputation as a good/prestigious employer.
2. CEO wage structures, by paying Michael Eisner ridiculously (the equivalent of 100k an hour) for (to be blunt) fucking up repeatedly.
3. Public Domain/Copyright law.
4. Their own damned theme parks.
5. The reasonable cost of a bottle of water.

I was also thinking about it yesterday, how when I was in college we were reading CivalWarLand in Bad Decline along with another story set in a theme park talking about theme parks and how it's the image of places like Disney World that they're like fantasylands where there is no suffering or death.

I had never thought about theme parks that way. Probably because when I young we were at Epcot center my dad wound up resuscitating a man who'd had a heart attack before the medics could get there. I don't remember this, but I've heard about it enough. Since it was father's day yesterday I was thinking about my dad and how he he taught me the value of magnamimous duty/service by interrupting our family vacations on multiple times to help people and whatnot, how we've stopped on multiple occaisions for him to check on people in car wrecks.

It's not that he needed any kind of compensation for living up to medical school oaths, but here's a contrast: Disney never acknowledged that my father substantially helped preventing someone from dying on their property, but the National Park Service moved our family to the front of a line we weren't even in at the Statue of Liberty because my dad gave miminal medical advice to someone who had minor difficulties in the extreme heat and was already receiving medical attention.

That said, I do still love their theme parks, and Jasmine is still hot in that exotic ethnic way. Let's see if they advertise on my blog now!

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 00:29:42 GMT

rant 233: I'm sorry, ms. palin, and I am for real...

I have a love/hate relationship with David Letterman. On one hand, I love that he has the balls to not only go forth with a bad joke - something about Sarah Palin's daughter getting knocked up by Alex Rodriguez - but also to mildly defend himself while inviting her on the show (see this: http://news-briefs.ew.com/2009/06/david-letterman-responds-to-flap-over-sarah-palin-jokes.html). At the same time, I'm annoyed with him for bringing her back into the spotlight.

This is a woman who just needs to go the hell away, slurk (made-up word, but I'm rambling, so it's cool) back into the mines of Alaska and stay there until I'm no longer drawing breath. Seriously, is it really necessary to continually give publicity to an air-head, egotistical beauty queen who is running the largest land mass in the union while not being able to speak on any kind of intellectual level? Please, just go away, and while you're away with your daughter and her baby's daddy, please learn how to inrepret a fucking joke correctly. If anything, it's about Alex Rodriguez more than her duaghters. I don't see him complaining. Why? Because he knows that being fodder for Letterman and co. is part of the price he pays for who he is and what he chose to do with his life. Dummy.

Went garage saling (made-up, albeit-commonly-used verb, but my poetic license just was reinstated) today. Got some good finds for our apartment in Chicago, but the most interesting thing was the trend of analog televisions being unloaded for next-to nothing. I'm not quite sure I understand the point of everyone switching to digital. If it was really a money/energy saver that was worth it, wouldn't the television stations have already done it? I also think analog signals need to be opened up if the technology isn't going to be used anymore. I mean, the whole point of restricting analog, if I remember correctly, was that the competing signals would be counter-productive/wasteful. I've probably been misinfiormed, but it would be cool if they just let anyone broadcast whatever the hell they want on analog.

While I'm riffing glibertarian (stupid portmanteau neologism copyrighted by moi), I'd like to express my disgruntlement over the current debate over health care. I'd be okay with fully government-funded health care, I really would, because I view it as a universal necessity on par with military spending...as long as it's properly funded and taxed. I'd also be okay with government apathy and complete privatization. What I'm not okay with is spending 60 years completely ignoring budgetary concerns while promising benefits that outweigh what people put into the system because technological advances affect health care spending habits and then all of a sudden - during an issue-ridden recession, mind you - realizing that something needs to be done about it because we're losing money at an alarming rate.

It really annoys me that people want a lot more out of something than they're willing to put in and think it's not only a good idea but indefinitealy sustainable.

Anyway, I need to move on. 'Til next time I have a half-hour to kill, my precious neglected xanga page, 'til next time.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:31:11 GMT

rant 232: yes, Billy, it's okay to lie.

I only wrote one xanga blog in May. I'm going to get this one in before midnight, probably, so that will make it two. Still a dry month by most standards. I'd like to lie and say I've been superbusy, but ma told me to never lie, except for that one time when the cops showed up asking questions. Other than that, it's truth or silence.

I've never really been a car enthusiast - I guess I skipped that day of "guy school" - but I can't help but be occaisionally captivated by pictures and lore of old automobiles. Today I wound up spending a good 40 minutes on Jay Leno's Garage (http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/cars/index.shtml), where he showcases his impressive car collection while providing some splendid information (now I know what a rotary engine is!).

The best video I saw was probably the one about his '67 Chrysler. I'm sure there's others, but I'm not watching all of them. Sheesh. Highlights: "This car has four cigarette lighters...you can drive yourself to the cemetary." "This car is a hybrid. You put gas in it, and then you get out on the freeway it needs even more gas." "When my dad went to buy his Ford Galaxie, the salesperson showed him how to hide the seatbelt by tucking it into the crease of the seat. Not like you'd ever need to use it or anything."

Honorable mention would be that one of his Lamborghinis came with a hammer under the seat as a "safety feature" so you could hack out the windshield.

One thing I saw that really made me respect Jay more was that his first purchase in the collection was a '55 Buick that he bought when he first went to Los Angeles and didn't really have a lot. It was his only car and he drove it everywhere. I have to give someone major credit who is so much into their hobby that they do something like that when their funds are limited. I actually feel happy for him that he found a lot of success and money, because I feel like he's actually doing something he loves with his money rather than being a dope who just snaps up the latest high-concept sports cars.

Anyway, it reminded me I used to not mind going through car shows. Never cared much for the engines, but the looks of classic American cars will never be replicated in style, while British Justin prefers the class of old Austin Healeys and Jaguars.

It's an odd coincidence that thinking about Jay Leno's last show led me to go to his site to check out his car collection and reminisce about various American automobiles. GM files for bankruptcy in a few hours, loses its place in the Dow Jones, and probably will never be able what it once was, despite hippie administrations' fancy views of emerging from bankruptcy. So now our industry strength is a car company whose patriarch family can't put a winning football team on the field. Go figure, eh?

I didn't mean to write about cars. Just turned out that way, as not a lot else is going on. I'm happy summer rapidly approaching. I can't wait to go back to school. Yada yada.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbbJmsRYrnc

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Thu, 14 May 2009 02:30:16 GMT

Rant 231: oh, humanity

I think I've realized my opinion of humanity in general has somehow skidded downhill from its already-low point. I find myself having thoughts I would describe variously as Nietzschean, Machiavellian, objectivist, fascist, etc., thoughts like "America would be a great place if it weren't for the idiots generally finding a way to run things" and 'it's times like this democracy really blows. Let's bring back kings!"

I'm not supposed to have these thoughts though, paradoxically, I have the freedom to do so. I'm supposed to believe in democracy and the right to vote and equality and that all men are created equal. This propaganda has been implanted into my involuntary brain functions. But then we elected a government that's mismanaged/mismanaging the place right into the ground fiscally. I mean, they couldn't even declare bankruptcy properly! (How about next time we NOT give Chrysler 4 bln before forcing them into Chapter 11 and laying everyone off anyway, okay?) Our social security and medicare programs are set to collapse, the environment has issues, we have natural resource problems in multiple areas, and yet we've still found time to spend the last 8 years hunkering our military on the other half of the Earth. Not to be cynical, but have we actually solved ANY long term issue since the cold war ended?

I just look at our current political system of no one wanting to really compromise and make hard decisions and I see it like the middle of a Dr. Seuss morality tale.

Sorry about the cynacism, but I just off the phone with Hoppy McGee. Hoppy is a made-up name for a student at Northwestern who gets paid to spend his Wednesday evenings calling alumni for donations as opposed to studying and actually becomming an intelligent member of our alumni someday.

Here's how this should have gone:

Him: [inane questions about my life]
Me: I'm going back to school in the fall.
Him: Oh, I understand that you're probably saving money for that. If you'd like to donate a small amount of money to NU, I'd be happy to take it, but we understand your situation and hope that after school you'll use your new position to donate to NU.
Me: I'll definitely consider that! You have a nice night.
Him: You too!

Here's how this actually went:

Him: [inane questions about my life]
Me: I'm going back to school in the fall.
Him: Can I start you off on a $100 a month pledge plan?
Me: I'm sorry, I don't feel I've gotten enough back from my investment in NU to warrant a donation at this time.
Him: Oh, I understand you're unable to give at this time...
Me: Oh no, I'm able. I just don't want to. I don't think it would be right. After I have a graduate degree and my education is paying back more in tangible returns, I'll surely consider donating to Northwestern.
Him: Dude, that's totally cool. I totally understand that and I respect that but I need to tell you about our YOUNG ALUMNI CHALLENGE because blah blah blah blah blah if we had a higher participation from our young alumni we would've moved up to EIGTH in the USNWR rankings!!! jibbity jabbity jibbity jabbity a donation as much as $25 dollars can really help boost our ranking; I know you care about these rabble rabble rabble rabble.
Me: [repeating what I said earlier].

I tried to be nice, because honestly it's probably not the 20-year old 's fault he has to read scripts to people who don't want to hear them, but I probably came off like an asshole. Maybe I'm just turning into a curmudgeon, but I feel my irritation is justified. Why, might you ask?

a) nearly all grad students take out loans to fund their studies. such students are, normally, in no position to be donating 1200 a year to their filthy rich college.
b) USNWR rankings are lame. I refuse to evaluate college by any publication whose sole relevance in the world seems to be ranking elite colleges and having Yale-want-to-be parents/students buy their services and brag. Hey, if you're actually US News and World Reports, why not actually be relevant to NEWS and the WORLD? And donation rankings? Are you serious? Why not evaluate who's solving cancer, composing symphonies, teaching public high schools, and writing bitter diatribes on their blogs?
c) my current position realizes less in annual salary than one year of combined expenses and tuition at NU. As far as a benchmark goes, I think that's a pretty good one.

most importantly:

d) I don't like being PANHANDLED in my own home at 8:47 pm when I have to get up for work at 5 the next day.

Gosh, I wish George Carlin were still alive, because I'd call him. I probably wouldn't get through, but I'd give the oeprator an earful.

I don't think I qualify as an angry young man anymore since I think Green Day is a bunch of sell-outs and I have no idea who else is out there. I like semi-bitter, ironic bands like the Decemberists and the Mountain Goats, but they're really only "angry" if you're at a fundraiser for Darfur or NPR.

So I guess I'm an angry old man. And I think everyone knows what I'm striving for: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGfx3QAV64M

and no, i don't want to publish this fucking entry to my nonexistent facebook profile!