Okay, I know its been a super long time since my last post, and I don't have much today, but for the sake of posting, I'll post two small trinkets. I got some bigger stuff coming down the pike (coming down the pipe? or pike?, weird this could have its own post), so this will have to suffice for now. My goal was to blog for year, and its been two years, so whatever. I still believe content trumps volume. Filling pages with crap is useless, I'd opt for a fewer amount of quality documents over tons of bullshit any day. Having said all that, I have two tidbits I have been thinking about for a while, and neither is really worthwhile for its own post (or anything for that matter), so condensing them into one seems appropriate.

Anyhoo, so I was at the grocery store a while back, and as I was getting out of the truck, there was a lady in an SUV next to me opening her hatch thing to put her groceries into her vehicle. She had a small child with her. I am probably not a good judge of small children's ages but I would wager this kid was maybe less than 2 years old. I cannot remember the kid's name exactly, but I believe it was Kevin, and so the lady says "Kevin, mommy has got to do something about the mess in this car!"

Think about that for a minute. clearly, she was not telling her small child this, he was too young to understand or care, hardly more than a baby. so this brings me to the conclusion that she was simply manifesting her own thoughts through fake talking to her kid. But then there is another issue, why would she do this in the Kroger parking lot? if her child were not there, and she simply said "i need to do something about the mess in this car" out loud in the parking lot, she would appear crazy. Is it really any less crazy to say this to a small child? I have also noticed this phenomenon between two parents, when one parent will say something to the other parent transitively through the child like "Darren, your father is a real asshole" or "Donna, I wish your mother would help me clean these blood stains out my underwear." These people are using their children as a shield from reality. These weirdos would be just as well off getting a hand puppet and expressing their true feelings through it. It sort of reminds me of the myth about orthodox Jews having sex through a hole in a bed sheet, and the subsequent various comedy bits about people doing all kinds of crazy things that were ok as long as they were done through a hole in the sheet. I guess in summary, I am simply saying that these people who talk to children as if they are adults or through children should stay at home and smoke their meth.

Completely different subject...

I drink too fast.. or do i? When I open a lovely carbonated beverage, I drink the entire thing generally in about 20 seconds. Is this good or bad, or does it even matter? No one generally notices that this happens, so maybe it is not that bizarre, although when I am in a restaurant, the waiter or waitress will sometimes comment because when they fill my glass, its empty almost instantly. A lot of times, they will eventually just leave a pitcher at the table to I can handle my own refills. This activity is not limited to just soft drinks by any means, I also do this with beer, wine, and liquor. I should also mention that my rate of consumption does seem to interfere with my enjoyment of said beverages. I don't really have much else on the subject, I was really just kind of wondering what the average elapsed time would be on an average person drinking an average beverage.

In hindsight, I should have just skipped this posting, and held off for quality content. This post is the reason I go for quality and not quantity.

OK. You have car insurance. If something happens to you car, you can get it fixed, and it doesn't bankrupt you. It is legally required pretty much everywhere. It is important and good to have. No one would dispute that. You also probably have health insurance. You get sick, you go to the doctor, he makes you better, and you don't go bankrupt. It is crucial that you have this. You may also have life insurance. If something catastrophic happens and you get killed, you family is taken care of. Again, it is important and good to have. Home owners insurance. You have it, because it is required, and if something happens to your house, you use it and have your house repaired, and you don't go bankrupt. All these things are relatively cheap to obtain and incredibly important when you need them.

There is another type of insurance that could be just as important that people hardly ever think about. Food insurance. What the fuck? What does that even mean? Are you retarded? No, I am not. What if you could spend a tiny amount of money, and insure that you could eat in the absence of widely available food sources? What if the power was off for a while, and the grocery stores were just closed until it was repaired? Don't see this as realistic? Ask the people in Galveston about that after hurricane Ike. What if for some reason the food supply line was just disrupted due to some sort of natural disaster, or some other sort of mechanism, where maybe shipping was not functioning properly. What if something more sinister was in play, like some sort of civil unrest or catastrophe preventing you from going to any available food source? In any event, something could go wrong and you could find yourself in a position where you could not obtain food. What do you do then?

This is 2008, so chances are you are too stupid or not well enough equipped to go 'make' your own food. You probably do not own a hunting firearm of any sort, and even if you did, you are probably one of these urbanite douche bags that only owns the weapon to kill the jackass breaking into your house to steal your fantastic array or useless gold jewelry. So, it is unlikely you are going to take out rabbits and squirrels so you can have much needed protein. So where does that leave you?

Well, for a few bucks, you can be pretty well off, and way better prepared than your neighbor. How do you do it? Simple. Peep this:

1. Obtain some oxygen absorbers. These are small packets that absorb oxygen, Perfect for food preservation.


2. Obtain some bucks. What kind of buckets? Food grade plastic buckets. You can probably score some of these for free if you want to look around. Or, you can be like me, and pay about 8 bucks a piece for some really nice ones that are square-ish and stackable, so that they fit into your pantry easily.


3. Obtain some beans and rice. How much? Depends on how much space you have available, and how many people you need to feed, etc.. That is for you to determine. There are plenty of guidelines available on the magic intercloud if you care to look around. I chose to have 35 pounds of each.


4. Toss a few absorbers into your bucket.



5. Put the beans and rice into each bucket. Toss a few more oxygen absorbers on top of the beans and rice. Put the lids on the buckets.



6. Put the buckets off in the back of your pantry. Mine fit right behind my trash can under the bottom shelf. Out of the way, and hardly taking up any space at all.



So as you can see, food insurance is quick, cheap, and easy. My configuration will last at least 10 years, and possibly longer. Technically speaking, these could last indefinitely. I plan to refresh the stash after about 10 years time, just so they don't taste funny if I ever need to use them. Personally, I don't expect to ever use this emergency food at all, ever, but it is nice to know that I have it if I ever do need it.

In case you are wondering, the smaller bucket in the pictures hold 25 pounds of salt. The 25 pound bag cost me less than 4 bucks, and in case you were not aware, sodium chloride (salt) is required for human life, without it, you will die. So it is good to have some on hand as well.
The total cost of this insurance was about 65 bucks. If you divide that out over a 10 year period, it comers out to about 54 cents a month. That is a pretty good trade off. I bet every bit of insurance you currently have cost a hell of a lot more than that.

In addition to this food insurance, I also have a 55 gallon drum of emergency drinking water in my garage. This is a but of a different subject, and I cannot recall if I posted about it ever, so we can cover that some other time. Food does not fall from the sky, so the water deserves its very own post.

So come on, don't be a dumb shit, quit making fucking excuses like "I don't have time", or "I just don't have the space for it", and go get yourself some food insurance, because there is little to no chance you will be borrowing mine if a time ever comes when I need it. And if you try to come steal mine, I will shoot you in the face while sitting on a pile of useless gold jewelry.


Je suis canard gigantic!

I was recently at a party that was BYOB. I brought 6 beers. Since I was only bringing 6 beers, I decided to get a strange brew. Something way out there and wacky and new to try. In addition to the beer, I had my flask topped off with whiskey. My plan was to drink my 6 beers, then if I needed an alcohol boost, I would take a swig off the flask. I placed my beer into my friend's refrigerator, grabbed one, and commenced to hanging out. I grabbed another, then another, as time went by. I decided to start hitting the whiskey so that I could space out my beers over the course of the night. As the night progressed, more and more people showed up at the shindig, each having brought their own beer as well. Several hours into the event, I noticed one of my beers opened, sitting on the counter, about 90% full. Wha? How did this happen? Wow, someone decided to go ahead and sample of my precious 6 beers. I guess going with a strange alternative to the mainstream has cost me one beer, because someone could just not resist. Maybe they thought the beer was communal, or provided by the host. Maybe they just didn't give a shit who it belonged to. Then I began to think what I would do about it. It is not socially acceptable to announce that the beer was yours, and that no one should have penetrated your stash. That is not even an option. Next, I considered just grabbing someone else's beer to replace the one I lost. Hmmm. Busted logic. What if the beer I took did not belong to the person who took mine, then I have done the same thing to someone that was done to me. Bogus.

What is the etiquette when attending a BYOB type gathering? Typically, when going somewhere for a party, I bring way more than I need for the evening, and pass beers out freely to anyone who happens to walk by. The more the merrier, so its never a problem. So the one time I decide to bring exactly how much I will need, I end up getting screwed over. Maybe it is up to the host to make some sort of announcement that the party is BYOB, so please have respect for everyone's suds, or perhaps let people know at the time of the invitation, that they should bring community beer, where everyone just brings whatever, and it becomes a help yourself type of configuration.

I should mention that I am not angry or anything, and I hold no ill will whatsoever. I really do not care in the slightest bit that this happened. I had my whiskey, and even if i didn't there were people offering me other libations, so there was no shortage of available liquors. This is simply an analysis of the logic in a BYOB scenario, trying to determine what goes through a persons head when they reach into a refrigerator full of beer, and pull out one that they know for certain that they did not bring with them. It was just an interesting occurrence that I have not experienced for years, and it got stuck in my head for a few days.

I think the safest course of action in the future is to just make sure I bring way more than I need. Everyone needs to follow this policy from now on.

That is all. As you were.

I do not like riding in a vehicle when I am not driving it. I found myself in a scenario the other day where I had to ride in a car with a complete stranger at the wheel. I would not say I experienced fear, but more unease, about not being in control of the car. Maybe this guy has had 150 car accidents in the last year. Maybe he really sucks at driving, or is perhaps one of these road rage people you hear about on the news. To make matters worse, he was in a rental car, so it is a vehicle he is not familiar with. Yet even worse, we were on a really busy major Texas highway. Unlike busy roads in a lot of places, where there are so many cars that its bumper to bumper slow type traffic, in Texas you can have really busy roads where everyone is going 70+ miles per hour. So to top everything else off, this guy is from out of state, so he is unfamiliar with the area and has no idea how to get to anywhere, and the entire time, he is trying to talk industry business. Also, for some unknown reason, this dude was listening to a Spanish talk radio station, and the volume was just loud enough to be annoying. All this is a perfect recipe for some sort of accident.

So after a few near misses, I started thinking about what it would be like if we got into an accident. At 70 miles per hour, it is quite likely that I would be thrown from the vehicle, or at least the car would be crunched up and pin me inside it. I do not believe that I am claustrophobic, I don't particularly mind being in small cramped spaces, so long as I am in control and I choose to be in such a scenario, but I don't think anyone would react positively to being forced into a small space without the possibility of being able to extract yourself from it.

So anyhoo, my heart started racing, and I was on the edge of my seat. Was this guy going to get me killed? That would be weird. I then started thinking about how my family would feel. It would be sad for them to have to deal with a situation where someone else was completely responsible for my being dead. Would they file a lawsuit against this person, assuming he was still alive? What if he died and I walked away unscathed, what would that be like? Could I handle being pinned in a crushed car, maybe with some serious injuries. Could I relax enough to make it through until a rescue team could extract me? That would be sme serious mind over matter work to do.

After going through all the possible outcomes over and over again, I sort of realized that there were no alternatives to what was happening. I could not get out of the car. I would also have to ride in the vehicle again on the way back to the office. So with some work, I was able to calm myself down and just accept the fact that whatever was going to happen would happen, and there is nothing I could do to change the outcome.

It made me think about fear. Is there a difference between fear and anxiety? I feel like what I experienced was anxiety. Fear, to me, is some sort of phobia of a known threat. For example, if you fear spiders, and you see a spider, you are afraid, so you have experienced fear. I do not think this some something that you can control. On the other hand, anxiety seems to occur as a reaction to something unknown, a perceived or anticipated danger. I think that fear could cause anxiety, but I think that anxiety could be controlled to prevent fear. For example, if you think a spider might be in the area, you could convince yourself that there isn't, until you know for sure.

I don't know. I can't figure it all out tonight, so I'm just gunna hang with your daughter.

I just don't get dancing. I never have. Have you ever watched someone dance? It is stupid. I have always hated dancing my whole entire life. When people try to get you to dance, they are assholes. If you dance with someone, you secretly want to fuck them. If someone dances with you, they secretly want to fuck you. I am not sure where my heart felt opposition to dancing stems from.

While I was growing up, when there were school dances, I avoided them. If I was pressured into attending one, I would hang out on the sidelines and pretend to be busy doing whatever. As an adult, at weddings and other such nonsense, I avoid dancing at all costs. In grade school, in physical eduction class (gym class), I was forced to dance. Typically square, although I seem to recall some other styles as well, but I may have just imagined those. This was always a fucking nightmare for everyone involved. Children should not be forced to touch each other under any circumstances. I hated dancing then, so whatever caused my hatred of dancing started
before then, so I cannot imagine the source.

One night, as an adult, some friends, male and female, dragged me to a "club" of some sort where dancing was going on. They pleaded with me to dance on a dance floor with probably 50 other people, and I simply refused. At one point, these "friends" of mine, literally grabbed me by the arms in an attempt to pull me into their retarded desire to dance. I got violent, and at one point, I believed that I was going to be forced to throwdown and kick some ass over it. Ridiculous.

I never was good at dancing, but I feel like no one really can be good at something that has no set rules or boundaries. I never even wanted to be good at it. Dancing could consist of damn near any movement, set to music or not. Its odd that dancing is judged, on TV and/or in real life. At any given dancing scene on any given day, anyone dancing is being judged by someone else.

There is one time. Once. In my entire life when I enjoyed dancing, and it was not even a real scenario, it was more of a drunken joke. I was flying high on the alcohol, and whatever else, and I happen to be wearing a 70s leisure suit of all things. It was not Halloween or anything, its just how I roll sometimes. Anyway, an impromptu break dancing competition broke out in the kitchen. I had just enough liquid courage to think it might be a good idea to try and win the breakdancing competition. There were several people there enjoying the event, so its not like it was just me and one other person. I don't recall all the details of my moves, but I know I ended with the most awesome backspin ever, and clearly won the competition.

I have thought about my hatred towards dancing quite a bit over the years, and I have yet to come up with a reason why I feel this way. I guess dancing is just dumb.

In summary, if you dance, you are a gay assfucker.

Why is it that the most unqualified people are usually the ones giving the most advice, on subjects they know practically nothing about?

I went to Oktoberfest the other day. There were literally thousands and thousands of people there. So many people that its pretty much shoulder to shoulder when you are anywhere near the huge food tent, or any beer service lines. Sometimes the beer lines are so long that by the time you get to the front of the line, you have to go right back to the end of the line and start over, because your beer will be gone by the time you reach the front again. Now, I have always sort of hated crowds. Something about the noise that crowds make rubs me the wrong way. But, at some point, being immersed in a large enough crowd sort of makes the crowd kind of disappear. The crowd can be so ridiculously loud and big, that it turns into something completely different. This is mostly the case at Oktoberfest.

The first few times I went to Oktoberfest, my group would walk around and browse all the German wares, and visit each exhibit, and experience the entire thing. Over the years though, it has more or less just turned into getting together, eating German food, and drinking mass amounts of German beer. There is nothing wrong with that at all. We don't get together very much I suppose, so an annual city organized event gives everyone an excuse to hang out together.

So, I was at Oktoberfest and I was walking around, generally looking down as I walked so I didn't trip over stuff or another person, and I notice a pack of cigarettes laying on the ground. I pick it up. The pack appear to have been trampled on quite a bit, but was generally intact. I pick it up and take a peek inside. There are 19 cigarettes in the pack. Someone spent their hard earned cash for these fine Camel tobacco products, smoked one, and somehow managed to lose the rest. I suspect they fumbled while attempting to reinsert the fresh pack into their pocket, due to so many people bouncing around. Score.

I announce my good fortune to the group. Hey, check this shit out, fate has brought me a fresh pack of cigarettes, one shy of 100%! I look around at my team, and most of them have a confused or hesitant look on their faces. Wha?

I commenced to busting out one of the Turkish delights for a smoke.

Whoa! You aren't going to smoke that are you?

eh? Whatta you mean? Of course!

These peeps were freaked out that I was going to smoke one of these found cigarettes. I explained again that there were 19 of the 20 left. Clearly someone had inadvertently dropped them. What did they think? Was it possible that some weird sicko bought a pack of cigarettes, smoked one, poisoned the rest with anthrax, went to Oktoberfest of all places, found a good spot, put them on the ground, then stomped on them, with the intention of killing some random fool who just could not resist the cool smooth pleasure that only a Turkish tobacco could provide? Give me a break! Did they think someone had shat upon them, or used them as some sort of butt plug, or perhaps merely urinated on them? Oh Come on! It is not like I had a cut on my leg, so I found a nice used band-aid, or like I found some previously chewed gum to enjoy.

What if I had found a twenty dollar bill. Clearly someone has already used the money. Clearly they didn't mean to drop it. Would they have the same dumbfounded look on their faces if I picked up some money? As a side note, I would wager the cigarettes were cleaner than any found money could possibly be.

I later offered one of the cigarettes to a fellow reveler. He was hesitant. There was another conversation about how they were obtained. I eventually said, just smoke the fucking thing, it'll be OK. He did.

I found the entire thing quite interesting. What would you do in this scenario? Would you have smoked the cigarettes? Maybe you don't smoke, but suspend your disbelief and pretend that you do. Or, in your reality, let's say it was a fresh package of gum, with only one piece missing, and clearly untainted in any other way. Would you chew some?

I took the cigarettes to work a week later, and I offered one to a dude. I said, hey, I found these cigarettes on the ground at Oktoberfest and they were stomped on, you want one? He said, heck yeah! and smoked it right up. He didn't bat an eye or ask any further questions at all.

So, I guess it boils down to a person's sense of adventure. I have sort of taken on an approach that life is a garden, dig it. When something delivers itself, it should be taken advantage of. Maybe the unseen forces wanted me to smoke those cigarettes, so they put them there for my benefit. Life goes by pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. That's your homework for today. Find an opportunity, and capitalize.

OK, so that wasn't about unqualified people giving advice at all I guess, too fuckin bad.

I was at the grocery store the other day buying my weekly crap, and during the checkout process, the young man ringing up our junks was perusing the items we were buying... bratwurst, buns, an onion, a bell pepper, some beer. I guess he assumed some sort of event was taking place, so he says "So am I invited to the cookout?". Wow. Now, I think most people would probably just assume he was simply making small talk. I too, quickly drew this conclusion. But, what if I wrong? What if he truly wanted to come to my house and eat my groceries? What if his game was to ring up groceries all day and more or less ask each customer if he could go to their houses and hang out and have some food, just to see who would bite. What if he was just trying to push the envelope? What if he was running some kind of experiment to see how people would react when given something that could be read as small talk, or could be taken as a serious question. What if, on several occasions, someone said "sure, come on over!", and he went to their houses. By just letting this pass and not giving a definitive answer, what if he feels as though he has won this round. We all know how important having the upper hand is, and now this chump has it, possibly over every person that goes through his checkout facilities. DAMN IT!

So, when presented with his potential challenge, I went to my old standby. I said "hmmm... perhaps!" Ok, so what would be the worst thing that could happen if instead I said "Yes you are my friend." I suppose he could have then asked for my address, and later showed up with a weapon and tried to steal all my fancy shit or end my life. That seems unlikely. A little less extreme would be he shows up, hangs out, and eats my food. Either way, its a break from the norm, so what have I got to lose? If he tried to murderize me, I would reply with my shotgun. If he was really just hungry, perhaps I gain a new friend. Its win/win.

So what am I trying to say? Nothing really. I just thought it was interesting. I guess in the future, we should all consider not just taking the easy road. We should challenge ourselves to challenge others. Can anyone really afford to let someone else have the upper hand? I think not.

Phucket

Wow, a new record period of time without posting. But, I am back from vacation and feeling back to my old form, so posts should start rolling out more frequently now, or least posts of a higher caliber. ...by the way, have I mentioned how bad ass squirrels are lately?

I have always sort of studied words and the way people use them. I think I have been more tuned into this study after reading a few books on psychology and human nature. Today I'd like to quickly analyze two things. One is related to the use of words, and the other is a quick analysis of a phrase I hear a lot, and how much I hate it.

This weekend Hurricane Ike devastated the Texas coast. For some reason, I really got into the whole event. I suppose it’s because I have spent time in the Galveston area, and have a lot of fond memories of it. I watched coverage end to end. DirecTV even put on special extra channels just dedicated to hurricane coverage. One of the channels they had available was a local Houston network, which had non stop coverage of the entire event. After the hurricane hit, one of the anchors from the local Houston network said something I found very peculiar. She said that a lot of homes on the Bolivar Peninsula were "completely completely destroyed." What? Really? Completely completely? This got me thinking about how often I hear people doing this... using the same adjectives and/or adverbs twice in a row to somehow try to give greater impact to the statement. Perhaps the most popular one would be "very very". "Hey, look over there, that's a very very large donut", or "Good Christ Tom, would you look at that, she has very very big titties!". I was a little surprised to see a trained news anchor do this, but I guess once they stray from the teleprompter, they are as dumb as a bag of hammers. Totally, totally dumb. Why stop there though? If you are trying to make your stupid babble sound more important why not pull out something like this? "Jeff was very very very very very very very very very VERY V E R Y angry, so he shot Donna in the stomach with a harpoon." It would be an instant classic to hear the television news anchor say something like "The Bolivar Peninsula was completely completely completely completely completely completely destroyed". You look stupid either way, so just go balls deep already.

Next up is these people that say "I don't have time". BULLSHIT. You have plenty of time. I am sure I am guilty of this from time to time when I hit a bit of a funk, but come on, there is plenty of time. This is the absolute easiest defense mechanism for people to try and use to justify not doing something that's hard or something that doesn't have as high a priority as something else. Let's get something straight here. Everyone has plenty of time. The interesting part is that people pull this out a lot when talking about something they really want to do. "I want to learn Spanish, but I just don't have time." Bullshit, it’s not like you have to spend 8 intense hours a day trying to learn it. "I would like to exercise, but I just don't have time". BULLSHIT! Quit lying to yourself. You have time. Obviously you have time to lie to yourself about not having time; you could have used that time to do something, rather than doing nothing. Just about everyone spends some time watching TV. If you watch TV for just 30 minutes a day, that's 30 minutes you could be exercising while watching TV. If you spend 30 minutes a day driving in your car, that's 30 minutes you could spend learning Spanish from audio CDs.

So, your homework now is to analyze your time, and see how much time you spend doing virtually nothing, or how much time you could multi-task and do multiple things at once. I think you would be surprised how much time you have. A whole whole lot of time.

So fuck off with your double adverbs and your "don't have time". Eat shit.