Wow that was quick

back to the safety of the familiar.

and the topic: the WGA strike.

For those of you who think that Unions are outdated and have no place in an intellectually based economy. Witness the current strike by the Writers Guild of America. the main issue is how writers are getting paid for their work. Some writers are paid one lump sum, and see nothing else, other writers see continued royalties on future productions or programs in syndication. Which raises the entire question of how writers get paid for a existing program or script being presented in a new medium.

the internet is a new medium for media. Until recently high speed broadband connections were rare, and expensive. The internet was used primarily for text and data transfer. Now that the average person can afford a connection fast enough to make webcasts and video download tolerable, they are becoming more common. But how do you pay the writer for them? Does each individual download count as a broadcast? Or each day, month, year?

So to those on strike: make the bastards pay for making us watch "Dancing with the Stars".

I only wish I was in an entertainment Union so I could go on a sympathy strike. Actually, I've got this week off... Screw it, I'm on strike too!!

long time- no post

I've realized I've pretty much stopped updating this Blog, and am using only my myspace blog at the moment. But updates wil continue here once I grow bored there and turn back to the safety of the familiar.

dream job

I have decided that I want to be an interior decorator for the blind.
Just because the business card would be fun to hand out.

people....

I went to k-mart to buy razor blades...
this lady in front of me, apparently in an effort to impress the idea of frugality and "Making sure no one is taking advantage of you" spent 5 minutes arguing with the clerk over whether the dress was on sale for 4 or 5 bucks...
originally a $10 dress, one sign said 50%, one sign said 60% off...
keep in mind... that was all she was buying, however she did think ahead and bring three different dresses up with her. Only one of which had the higher discount sticker on it

The clerk at one point held up the two dresses. One in a size 7, one in an 8.. exact same cut, fabric, and pattern... and said "They aren't the same dress".

Because she was holding one of them backwards.

admittedly, if you're shopping in k-mart, you aren't there for the patterns, but the prices.. but damn. I was on the verge of just yelling "I'll give you the dollar if it means I can get out of this line and into the bathroom any quicker"

Because I really had to pee

While in said bathroom I also realized that I am not fully acclimated to urban living. Partially acclimated as it didn't faze me that there was graffiti on the bathroom walls.

But it did bother me that it was misspelled

As a general note to the universe.. "If you can't spell 'blowjob'... don't write on the fucking walls".

The advantage

To being a lesbian with mismatched chromosomes is that you save a bundle on Strap ons.

The advantage

To being a lesbian with mismatched chromosomes is that you save a bundle on Stop ons.

A banner year

It may be wrong of me to be happy in the face of other peoples pain, suffering, or change of vocation.
But earlier this year, Falwell passed away. His oversized hate filled corpse adding valuable nutrients so that grass, flowers, and other beautiful things may grow. Unless he was creamated. Then he's just a bunch of useless dust with slightly less sentience than he showed throughout his life.

I thought the news couldn't get any better.

Then Karl Rove quit. While not quite as great as if other White house officials did the same, a man I have come to view as a "moderate Goebbels" is one step further from the reins of power.

Ha ley lou Ya

back on track (maybe)

So my vehicles have been a major pain in my ass for the past year... Some examples of things that have happened:

The state of Illinois didn't send me the new title for my old car. Last year the brakes went on it as I was driving home for my brothers graduation. I replaced the brakes, got home safe, drove for another month, then the Cooling system went. Replaced that, but not soon enough to prevent the seals in the engine from blowing and destroying said engine.

So I ended up with a quick fix POS Saturn... Which got me back to Il (eventually) and around to a few job interviews. However what I didn't know was I needed to pick up a "city sticker" (When I asked if I needed one at the DMV I was told no) So I recently received a parking ticket.. which I couldn't afford at the moment, nor could I afford the city sticker. Which meant I got another ticket. So i tried selling the damn thing since I rarely used it. I had three people say they would buy it.. none of them showed up to get it... Then I missed an insurance payment... So now my car has been sitting with no insurance or city sticker.

i'm used to NY, where your registration is for 2 years, and relatively inexpensive. Here it's 100 bucks for the registration, 100 bucks for the city sticker, and I don't have either hundred. My Registration ran out in June, so now I'm struggling last minute to find a salvage yard that can pick up the car today before it gets towed and impounded by the city. Since I don't actually want the car I definately don't want to see it get towed and impounded where I might be responsible for it financially. Since it's worth less than the price of a tank of gas and barely runs.

sorry

Ok, I admit it.. I've been bad at the whole writing thing. Hell, it's not like anybody reads this on a regular basis anyway.
Basicall i'vce ben writing non-offensive non-fiction for the past few weeks... ok, the last week. The rest of the time has been lazy. I'm not moving as fast as I'd like to with the project. i'm about 3 days behind at the moment, although I have 2/3rds of the book planned out and I'm just in the introductory/ rough draft stage at the moment so things have to be a bit more free flowing rather than structured.

Unfortunately it seems like my fingers are on chapter 4 and my mind is pre-writing chapter 25

Transformers

An open note to Michel Bay:

Thank you for not raping my childhood.

-Kris

So...

I met Jesse Jackson.

Wow, what an asshole.

Since taking my current position: I've dealt with Angry people, people who were upset with their service, people who would never be happy with any level of service. But until I met the reverend, I have never been treated as though I was not a human being.

No excuse

Just haven't seen much lately to cause me to type.

Except:

While walking around the other day I noticed a sign that gave me pause and caused me to Seriously doubt the ability of the human race to ever rise above its history of petty jealousy, war, and general stupidity.

I was walking by a park which featured a large bronze sculpture of children playing. Which is a good thing, especially in cities we need to have areas set aside to sit down, consider the beauty of a child at play, merely enjoying their existence. Moments to reflect upon universal harmony, etc. This particular park was attached to a charity.

BUT next to the path leading into the park was a sign that said: "welcome to (the park) No loitering..."

If you can't loiter, a park has no reason to exist except to say "We have so much money, we can use this space; which could be used to shelter the homeless, provide research facilities for those questing after a cure for cancer. But instead, we're going to put up a self congratulatory sculpture telling everybody how great we are. But if you dare to rest for a moment, or pause to look at the sculpture... We're calling the cops!"

If people weren't so stupid, I would have no reason to be misanthropic.

Nothign to do Nowhere to go

So I'm typing instead. Actually I'm debating what I might want for a late dinner. I was running late for work tonight and the cash bar I was cashiering ended right as the employee cafeteria closed. I'm not sure if I want Diner or Mexican. I know it will be one of the two, but I'm not sure which.

ah well, in all probability I will walk down the street and decide when I see if anybody is in the Mexican restaurant. It's small so even a rowd of 3 drunks can get annoying. But then again, that's the purpose of drunks.

Ever notice some words look misspelled no matter what? For me restaurant is one of those words.

resteraunt
restaraunt
restiraunt
restaurant
resteraunt
restaurent

They all look wrong to me.

"life is the result of the struggle between dynamic opposits." So quit trying to make us all the same.

Fun time

SO I managed to snag a free pass to an anime convention this weekend. Only had a couplehours to go before work, and so only toured the vendors, but it was fun.
Picked up some t-shirts, snapped some pics of the cosplayers, and generally enjoyed myself. I met the voice of GIR, and snagged an autograph to the delight of his wife, and one of the guys that did voice work on Pokemon and Yu Gi Oh. Although it was at work so I didn't go fan-boy on him for my brother.

The problem was I'm not an anime geek. I know of it, understand it, but haven't found any I like enough to get into it deeper. IT's just the style. So I'm wandering around the floor and I realize, "this is like visiting the south". The language is the same, the styles are very similar to my tastes, but it's still slightly alien. But in a positive way instead of a "We don't like people who read too much 'round here" way.

finally got to see spidey 3

I liked it... It's rare that an action movie makes you want the action sequences to stop so that you can see more of the characters.

This amused me

So while discussing Rascism etc. with one of my co-workers (Who is a latino immigrant) today he was trying to make an obvious point about how stupid rascism is. (He was right, i definately don't disagree with him on that score).

"I mean It's like if I say: 'all white people are asshole, except you, that's still stupid eh?"

"No, but you're right.. white people are assholes, some moreso than others. Those are the brown ones"

He needs to learn not to feed me straight lines.

learn English or die asshole!

No, It's not another redneck decrying the apparent laziness of immigrants. (Although how any fat white guy sitting in a recliner can call a guy that's too busy working his tail off for substandard wages to take night classes he can't afford: "lazy" is beyond me.) If you are an immigrant, or even a tourist, just learn these three basic phrases and I'm happy:

"Pardon me, I don't speak English can you...
...point me towards the mens (ladies) room?"
...Stop standing on my foot"
...help me find somebody who speaks (whatever)"

That's all you really need to know, unless you're in NYC in which case "direct me to the nearest emergency room specializing in gunshot wounds" might also be appropriate, but not entirely neccessary.

People who attempt to move here to better thier own lives, and provide a more solid educational foundation for their children than they would have had in their native land are ok in my book.

I want the people who are telling them to learn a new language to learn English themselves. I'm sick of hearing PA addresses like "We're sorry for the delay, there is a single track between {here and the next station} we are waiting for the driver to abort the train". I still don't know what they meant by that. I could have understood; "We almost crashed, and now we're waiting for this asshole to back the fuck up", or "We're waiting so we don't kill all of you in a head on collision, please be patient". But how exactly do you abort a train? It seems a little large for a coathanger.

So all of you willfully ignorant people who think it's ok not to read, and then try to come off sounding intelligent... it doesn't work, actually read, and learn the fucking language before you attempt to criticize immigrants.

Remember:

When you wake up in the morning and your breath is not exactly fresh... It's because millions of bacteria just took a shit in your cavities.

an Idea

So I was walking today and as usual my mind was doing it's normal wandering:

"I wonder if Falwell would tell the virgin mother not to breast feed the Christ child so it wouldn't be exposed to a naked womans breast, thus giving his perfect form an impure thought later in life?"

"What would I say in my first press conference if I were president?"

"how exactly does that lcd display work, I know how you work it, but not how to make it from scratch..."

"Damn people in chicago can't drive, fucker almost hit me."

"If the train is standing room only for the entire trip, shouldn't that tell somebody we need more trains?"

"Stupid cold, **sniff sniff snuffle snuffle*"

"Why do religious conservatives fear knowledge so much?"

That last one got me and took me almost an entire block to work out. But I figured it out. It all goes back to the garden of Eden story. Why were Adam and Eve kicked out to begin with? Was it that they ate a piece of fruit? No, that can't be the real reason, there was fruit all over the place. Was it because they realized that death existed? No, because while you can consume a piece of fruit without killing the tree, you cannot consume prime rib without killing the cow. Since Evolution is mere scientifical heresay, Adam and Eve obviously ate meat since we have the teeth for it. It obviously wasn't the fact that they were naked, since God hadn't given them capris and a tube top.

It must have been the knowledge of themselves that condemned them. THe mere act of "knowing" condemned them to travel from paradise, so in order to reach the next paradise we must expunge all knowledge from our selves in order to repudiate the original sin and purify our forms for entrance into the afterlife.

Personally, I think this is almost as bad a reason as "We can't allow anythign to question God, so we must kill those whose beliefs differ from our own" mantra chanted across the globe. But, I am willing to alow people their ignorance as long as they don't attempt to foist it upon me. Go ahead, refuse to learn the calculus and biology.

But once you have made the decision to persue ignorance, you are automatically out of the decision making process.

What the hell?

Normally slate does a decent job with it's stories and punctures the spin of the people trying to pull the wool over our eyes so we don't get upset at how much we're getting screwed.

Normally.

http://www.slate.com/id/2161309/fr/flyout (Hopefully this will take you to the story)

Quick summary: The poor have less money, but more leisure time than the poor of a generation ago, while the rich have more money, but less leisure.

The story is attempting to make it sound as if factory workers, store clerks and other low wage position holders have had some benefits to the Reagan/ Bush/ Clinton/ Bush economic plans.

What it didn't take into account is that most of the people at the top of the economic ladder have ful time positions. There aren't very many on-call CEO's.OR seasonal CFO's.

But once you get into the lower end of the spectrum, you run into part time positions, unemployment, and more stay-at-home parents. You also run into people with seasonal positions such as teachers, lifeguards, camp counselours, exterior painters, landscapers, carpenters, etc. These issues were not taken into account. Just who has more free time.

So this is the new spin: "Yeah, you're making less money, but you have more free time to spend with your family."

and my point: "Free time doesn't mean anything if I can't afford food asshole"

What the study needed to look at was the amount of free time that was had by people at the same point in their parallel career paths. for example comparing a master carpenters free time with a district account manager would be fair, but comparing Bill Gates to the guy that puts mayo on my burger isn't going to be close.

I noticed...

That every time I begin to have some faith in humanity, and see a glimmer of hope for industrialized western civilization: It is ruined.

Usually by somebody doing the electric slide.

The war against poverty.

Over the past few years we have seen the Government of this country seek to solve problems by exaserbating them. Compare teh number of Americans killed in Terrorist attacks before 9-11-01 with the number killed since 9-12-01. Yet we are fighting a war on terrorism.

Over the past 30 years the quality of life for those at the bottom of the socio-economic spectrum has at best stagnated. However it is extremely difficult to do worse than "Standing on an exit ramp with a carboard sign sparing or change", so stagnation is a default state, not a sign of improvement to come. Yet we are fighting a "war on poverty".

Recently there has been an increase in the number of violent crimes committed after years of decline. As people lose hope apparently the free meals and rent in a jail cell don't seem to be the deterrent they once were. Yet we're fighting a war on crime.

I haven't seen statistics on this yet, however I would be willing to guess that the number of people using illicit drugs, or even legal drugs to excess is rising despite the "War on drugs" Nancy started.

So I guess the point is simple, we declare war on terrorism, poverty, crime, drugs etc. and they increase. Why don't we just declare war on Education, tolerance, small business, and working families and watch them thrive.

I lost february

Almost the entire month, It went from "Superbowl" to "Try to ignor the fact that it's Valentines day and Serwah is in NYC" to "Shit Rent's due" before I even had to time to realize it's black history month.

Fortunately I don't watch TV so I missed McDonalds trying to cash in with their annual "insert MLK into our current slogan" campaign.

Finally,

Carlos Mencia did something that was funny. The First Bud light ad he was in during the superbowl.

My favorite ads:
The Fed Ex Moon office
The Male car wash
KFC's Plain text ad
The snickers kiss
The bud Light Slap. (Although I think it would have been funnier if they had just left it at the first slap)

The ones I Disliked:
If it dealt with medicine
The old guy drinks coke and gets a tatoo
The one finger ad
The workweek survivor ads.

Why do we work?

In the past people worked for food, clothing and shelter, now those things are affordable with a 20 hour a week minimum wage job. Not particularly good food. You won't be eating steak and lobster, and after scrimping and saving for a few weeks you could easily afford a tent and enough blankets to make it through the coldest of evenings if you have someone to cuddle and canoodle with.

So what is it now? A bigger tent? Louse free clothing? Not really a good motivation to give away 40+ hours of your life a week in the hopes that you will be allowed to retain a piece of your soul for future use. Maybe I'm an oddity in that I don't really desire new gadgets and material possessions. (Except books, movies, and music... But it's not the physical object I desire it's the experience of the art they contain) I don't want a phone/camera/mp3 player/microwave/smartini stirrer/television even though I'm suppossed to.

So what do people like me work for?

Free porn. You show us boobies, we'll sell our souls and kneel in front of a pants-free satan and open our mouths wide with a smile. Just give us the opportunity to see as many nipples and possible. We don't care if they are tied up, covered in some odd gooey substance, big, small, augmented, reduced, lopsided, firm or floppy. The variety is why we keep going back.

The opiate of the masses has evolved from religion, to television, to free boobs. Which are much more attractive then old men in robes and a 27" Zenith.

Spin

So I have for some reason started thinking about different points in history and how I would have spun them if I was in a position to do so. Here are some of the thoughts:

In order to better serve its African-American customer base, Deep South diner now offers a convenient rear entrance, away from the dangerous "Main Street". We are also offering a completely self contained Afro-centric dining area which seeks to recreate the experience of visiting a diner in the trendier areas of Somalia.

In an effort to reunify the tribes of Israel, the German government will be embarking on a high volume relocation and work study program across not just its own borders, but throughout the world. The "Star Of David" program will include free meals, lodging and relocation. Concurrently we will also be running a "Pink triangle" program which will allow the countries homosexual population the opportunity to network with each other and avoid the hatred and discrimination commonly found in our communities.

In an effort to allow or customers more quality time with their families and friends: the next windows operating system will contain several hidden features that we're sure everyone will enjoy. Instead of spending hours looking for your favorite illegal internet gambling site, just visit it once, and the next time you turn your computer on, a link will automatically pop up to take you there. In an effort to make your home computing experiences even more pleasurable, Windows has been fitted to take measurements of certain elements in the air, I'm sorry I acn't tell you what exactly is measured as it is proprietary information, and will automatically turn off the computer when you have worked too long and hard. Besides these two examples, there are plenty of other hidden surprises inside the newest version of Windows. Many of these features can be turned off with software obtained from outside vendors proving that we are not a monopoly, but encourage our customers to use products developed by other manufacturers to enhance ones "Windows Experience".

I'm going to have to think of more later: THese were just the obvious ones...

2 things

1) When you click on the "remember me" button when you sign into a site, shouldn't it rememebr you. Especially if it makes you type in an e-mail address instead of say, a normal username?

2) I REALLY hate the post office. Once again they have lost my security deposit check from my old landlord. So now, not only is my rent late, I have to wait for her to re-mail it, and pay the cancelled check fees.

3) There is nothing here, I said a couple of things, can't you read? This type is merely a figment of your imagination working overtime. Or did you think I just didn't know the difference?

Taking offense

How often have we been fed lines about how America is losing its moral compass and our moral integrity is being lost.

But they never mention what the comparison is.

Is it the 1930's when we let millions starve at home and didn't bat an eye at the the genocide being committed in Europe?

Maybe the 1940's when we were fighting the Nazis, but stil discriminating against people at home.

Ok, the 50's when we arrested poets, publishers, and comics for "Obscene" material and made people drink at different drinking fountains because of the color of their skin.

It's gotta be the sixties with all of the hippies preaching peace and love while doing massive amounts of drugs and practicing "free love"

Or maybe the 70's when our leaders felt it was ok to evesdrop on rivals and we finally stopped killing people in Southeast Asia.

No? Well, then it has to be the 80's when we ignored a killer disease until it started infecting straight white people.

Maybe the 90's with it's pro-environmentalism attitude, increased awareness of sexual diseases and options thanks to a certain famous cigar.

Or possibly, it could just be that the problems that exist now: Racism, sexism, pollution, rape, murder, war, sexual abuse or even jaywalking are given more attention in the media than they were in the past?