Jim over at SnoozeButton started Protomonkey a long long time ago in a land far far away, and it has had a few revitalizations since then. I added my latest contribution here. Check it out along with the other short fictions stories posted there.
On Friday I got a call from my best friend. He's been in Costa Rica for about six months working on various sustainable development projects; the guy's like a brother to me. Anyways, we had a great weekend did all kinds of cool stuff.
But last night we watched the movies 'Million Dollar Baby' and 'Hotel Rwanda'. After such a great weekend, those movies were the ultimate buzzkill. Honestly, by the time I'd wasted five or six hours of my life watching those flicks; I was ready to go out in the backyard and fall on my sword. What a depressing couple of hours that was. I got up today and it's all rainy, I feel like I should check myself into a crisis center or something.
We decided to ditch out wedding reception plans at the parents house. IT was turning out to be lots of legwork and a real logistics nightmare. So I had to call the DJ back and re-book him. I'm sure he's fully convinced that we are by far the most clueless people he's ever done business with. Instead of doing it at my parent's house to save money, we're going to do the rehersal dinner at their place, pizza and beer most likely; and use the money we save on the rehersal dinner to pay for a better reception. Ah, who am I kidding, we'll probably end up using the extra money as a downpayment on a photographer. I mean, given what these wedding industry types charge, we should be able to work off our indentured servitude sometime shortly after Hillary's first term as President.
The funny thing is both she and I agree that eloping would be superior to planning a wedding like we are. But we talked about it, and decided that the whole point of us wanting to have a wedding is to share it with all the friends and family over the years who've meant anything to us. And if fulfilling that goal means spending lots of money on a big party, then fine. Those mothers better bring some good gifts and fat checks though. For real. No tickee no washee.
I tried to teach myself to surf recently. I can't decide if I'm a worse teacher than I am a surfer or vice-versa. Either way I've decided to take lessons. There's a Hawaiian expatriate at work who gives cheap lessons. I'm not sure what in the hell makes a native Hawaiian move from his home to this relative dump, but maybe he knows something I don't.
We've been trying to pin down a photog for the wedding recently. Some people actually had the nerve to tell us they didn't want to book us because; based on our budget, they were afraid of losing someone else who could make them more money! No offense, but I went to school with some photography majors, and they're hardly the type to turn away work, nah mean?
The best part was this little exchange.
Dialing phone, ringing.
"Hello, Fucknut's Photography."
"Yeah, Fucknut; I was just wondering what your rates are for weddings. I'm looking for someone to take some shots for maybe an hour or two during and after the wedding."
"Well, we normally don't do that. But what our usual package involves is about 4-5 hours of photos, usually about 2,000 photos narrowed down to 1,200 really nice shots, and we put them on disk for you. The package runs about $1300."
"$1300 for the whole day?"
"Yeah, and we may show up for the rehersal dinner just to get to know the wedding party."
"Hm. Who makes $1300 a day? Isn't that what the whore in Pretty Woman charged?"
"I'm sorry, what?"
"The whore in the movie, I think she charged $1,000 bucks a day. And she was played by Julia Roberts. I mean, unless you're gonna show up with a hot, really hot, hooker on your arm who will suck my dick on command, I don't really think I'm willing to pay $1300 for you to stand around at my wedding and take photos for a few hours."
"We'll be at the rehersal dinner too."
"Right, which I am paying for. I'm not going to pay you to stand around at my rehersal dinner, eat my food, and not have my dick sucked by the hot whore you're going to have with you."
"Well, we could drop the price to $1,000."
"Who the fuck makes $1,000 a day?"
"It's actually more than one d-"
"Right. I forgot, you'll be at the rehersal dinner. Great. I'll tell you what, $850 for both days and a blow up doll and you got yourself a deal."
-click-
It's like they don't want to make any money. I mean, if someone offered me $850 for a day's work, I'd be all about it. I should just buy a better digicam, put a decent looking whore on retainer, and I'd have myself the goddamn cheapest photography biz in the nation; plus a sweet gimmick to boot.
Sorry I haven't been blogging lately, but I've been in the hospital. It's nothing serious, I've just been reading too much news lately. See, I was perusing my favorite stock market site the other day and found out that apparently, there's no reason for oil prices to be so high. According to that guy they're inflated. Hmph.
Then over the next few days some big oil company's turn in earnings. Marathon doubles their earnings this year, Exxon's increase by a third, then Shell does them one or two better. It's good to know that when I pay $2.36 a gallon at the pump that it's not all going straight into some fatcat's pocket right? How much have gas prices increased in the past year? Little over a third right? The frustration begins to set in.
Then I click on over to CNN, where I read that a bill has just been passed that "sends billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies to energy companies, but is expected to do little to reduce U.S. oil consumption or dampen high energy prices." Sa-weet!
So while I'm paying out my broke ass for gasoline, it's not because supply is shortening or internal costs are increasing; it's because these fat oil bastards are eating so much Alaskan crab and Crystal that their Armani suits don't fit anymore and they've got to get new ones stiched every month or so. And when these rich big oil motherfucks do their taxes at the end of the year, they get to write of billions. What the fuck is going on? That's when the doc said the aneurysm hit. I passed out in my chair, my head went forward onto the desk table, and I suffered a mild concussion. Good thing I was surfing the net at work, or I probably would've never been found.
The wee little lass is growing into her element. She's growing up and into something as awesome as we ever could've imagined!
On a side note, I think her and Jennifer could have high times. They're both so similar: intelligent, snarky, well read, but not impenetrable. Real people.
Here's to the ladies!
One of the externs came in looking for Carol, the program coordinator. Apparently this poor bastard let her CNA license lapse. Her renewal application needs to be faxed to the state ASAP and she needs the hospital's DFS license number. So this young girl is looking at me all running off at the mouth about "Oh my gawsh! What am I going to do?!" Of course no one else is in the office because it's Friday. I have no fucking clue really what any of the stuff she's spouting means because I'm an analyst, but i decided to help her out, give her a few phone numbers of people to call.
Then she starts wanting me to let her borrow my phone, when there's one in Matt's office that he doesn't even use. I mean, it's like two steps away, and she was using it two minutes ago to call her mommy to bring her lunch or whatever it is that externs use a phone for. Then she starts getting all huffy and melodramatic about "Oh, what ever shall I do?"" and I'm thinking, "Well, for starters you could send your renewal application in before it's overdue, thus avoiding all this panting and using of my office space." I know, I'm an asshole, but don't come into my office asking for my help taking up my fucking time, and then when I try to help you with this situation you got yourself into that I know nothing about, give me the frowns because I can't bail you out. Welcome to the real world, where you pay the consequences for letting this kind of shit happen. This is not college anymore, I'm not running a daycare, and neither are the AA's in this office. I pray thee, get the fuck out.
Then this oldass volunteer comes in. Volunteers are, on a grand scale, slow to the point of having a handicap. That's why they volunteer, because no one would pay their ass to do anydamnthing, becuase it could be done quicker and cheaper by a trained flea circus. Anyways, she wants to know if she can take an inservice to renew her clinical license that probably lapsed sometime after the late pleistocene. She's so freaking old that her mind has gone, because she obviously thinks this is still where Human Resources is located. HR moved across the street two years ago people. Two years, let it go. So she asks her dumbass question and I basically tell her I have no fucking clue how to help her, that maybe she should fucking try HR. Ma'am. She replies as slow as her age-addled mind can muster, "O h, w h e r e t h e o l d g r o c e r y s t o r e u s e d t o b e?" Sure, whatever you say lady. You're two steps away from pushing a shopping cart full of someone else's garbage down the street and mumbling to your imaginary friends. I think it might be a little to late to consider a decision to re-enter the job market. It was the kind of day that just makes you want to slow down, take a deep satisfying breath, count to three, and yell "GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFFFFIIIICE!!"
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Really, I've got some other posts I want to make, but I want this one to be seen. This rant was written by me in an email to someone when they asked me how my day was going. I mean, it was just one of those days, and they got the whole story. I refined it a little, tried to really make it zing. I'm proud of this one. If I was to ever go head-to-head with Louis Black, this would be the one I'd take with me. I'm no egotist, but God I just love reading it. Those people were so annoying.
Well, the fiancee and I have officially scrapped all our plans for the wedding. We had begun to plan this event so that it would be an above par affair. We didn't want our guests to be disappointed after travelling from far and wide, only to show up at some average ho-hum todo. We wanted them to be happy they came, grateful that at least they hiked all that way for a little friggin ambiance.
Let me tell you how much of a pain that was. It was emotionally grinding us both against eachother, like a pistil and mortar making a fine pumice of our lives. We would argue about details we discovered neither one cared about. We would worry about saving the money up, what would we do if disaster struck? Could we take money from the wedding fund? She was working two jobs, I was working and going to grad school, she starts hers in August. We were juggling a million flaming bowling pins and we really only cared about six of them. Okay, maybe seven. Point is, we weren't planning our wedding; we were planning a wedding for our guests.
Over the 4th of July weekend, one of the family relatives offered twice to basically cater our reception at cost. We shrugged it off politiely not wanting to impose. We got home and discussed the option. It actually came out that doing something like that would be typical 'us.' We're pretty laidback, low-maintenance people when it comes to partying. The stress relief and down home feel was beginning to appeal to us.
Then my parents offered us their house to hold the reception. We were sold. We haven't argued about wedding details in a week, many times the interval we were before. We realize that it's not going to be the standard formal affair, but we know it's going to be hella fun. Besides, neither one of us is really interested in standards anyways. Now we can invite as many people as we want, without having to worry if we can afford another $20 a head to feed them. We don't have to worry about being out of some fancy shmancy reception hall in four hours, we can stay and party until everyone falls out. It's kind of weird, because at first we started out really wanting to do it up, thinking that a good time meant spending lots of money. Now it's going to be something completely different, and completely reflective of who we are.
The best part about it, is if someone doesn't like it, I'll know they never really liked me. Which is okay, because when we start lighting the fireworks, we're gonna need a target.
You know, I'd rather be dead than be stupid. Stupid people are killing us, literally dragging us down. And I'm not talking about a socially stratified definition of stupid. I mean, I go to fucking grad school with people of all ages that I would consider to be complete fucking morons. And you know who you are!
I know people who know nothing but farming who're smarter than some of the fuckheads I work with. The sad part is that these idiot co-workers of mine think they've earned a place in academia. Fuck. You know, if I wasn't afraid of getting sued, I'd record audio from some of these numbnuts that qualified as graduate students and post it up here for all to see. There's this one fucknut who's got the IQ of a bushel of radishes. He's fucking RETARDED.
His stupidity is so....it... causes me so much stress that I can't think about anything except Gallagher and how much fun he had smashing watermelons with that fucking 20lb mallet. This guy is that big of an IDIOT. And it's not just me; just so you know. There's women old enough to be my mother in this MBA program, and even they express a yearning for the Gallagher mallet. That's when I KNOW you're officially a fucktard; when I'm not the only person who wants you dead.
Really though; the motherfuckin' icing on this shitcake is that this guy got a degree from a nationally recognized university. I'm talking about a college that has a stellar academic and athletic program. If I said the name, you people would be astounded. SLACK-JAWED even. And yet somehow this choad-for-brains managed to graduate and end up polluting MY fucking grad program! Jesus. Jesus fucking Mary and God for fucking saken Joseph. Yes. He is that stupid. Where the fuck do we find these people? Is the state running out of funding so much so that we have to let these retards into the colleges to get state income from their tuition?? STOP THE MADNESS!!!!
So, the Islamists really did a number this time in London hey? Speaking of numbers, which they seem so fascinated with, how 'bout these numbers. July 7th, 1940 was the day Hitler chose to begin his London Blitz. I'm sure those cheeky fucks sat aroung their Afghan cave chuckling to eachother about the irony of the day they chose to inflict terror on the British people.
Well, you friggin knuckleheads, in your effort to be all...numerical and cipher-oriented and shit, you forgot one thing about history in general. It tends to repeat itslef and if memory serves, London couldn't be broken by the barrage the Luftwaft unleashed on them, so I seriously fucking doubt a few mujihadeen with Jansports full of pipe bombs is going to bring a people like that to their knees. Even the IRA, after thirty years of bombing, has decided to take a more diplomatic route.
Furthermore, these British people are crazy. Maybe you guys haven't ever heard of rugby, but it's kind of a cross between ice hockey and boxing, but without all the pansy-ass pads and gloves. And these people do that for fun. You thought it sucked when the US started bombing your ass into the stone age, wait 'til the fucking Manchester United fans get a hold of you. I once partied with some of them after a soccer match, and they had a glass-eating contest. Two guys would face off, slam their pints, smash the glass on the other's forehead and eat the shards that were stuck in his dome. First one to clean his plate gets a free round. And that was after a winning match mind you. I'm telling ya, they're nuts. Good luck with that.
I spend some time each day surfing through Protein Wisdom, Daily Kos, Instapundit, and a few others just seeing what there is to see. A lot of the stuff is mildly interesting, and tends to bring things to the surface that I otherwise wouldn't know about. Sometimes I save the link so I can tracback to it and make a post of my own.
However, usually by the time I get home and have the spare time to write about whatever it was, I just don't give a shit anymore. I mean, it's probably just about some useless tactic some politician used to grab the spotlight for his issue, or make someone else look dumber than he did, or whip people into a sensational frenzy. So much of that stuff is complete bullshit anyways.
Then the goddamn bloggers get a hold of it and the issue is everywhere.
I mean, everyone and their mom has an opinion on it, everyone's fucking shouting over the din of the other 50 or 60 people on the thread, there's like six different arguments going on, three complete lunatics spouting shit just to get a rise, and I'm like fuck it. I can't possibly say anything that hasn't already been said, because there are 348 replies to that thread. Never mind that I think they're all fucktards, because one of those lunatics already tried that approach and got lambasted. They really are though. Fucktards I mean.
I hope what these politically oriented blogs are teaching us is that everyone has an opinion, even if they're a fucktard. You don't have to join a specific line of political argument, you can just vote how you want based on the issues, not just pick one guy because he's who the media likes. There's all kinds of information on the web out there. Just don't be a big enough fucktard to believe it all without researching it at least a little before acting on or voicing your opinion. And it's that right, nay privilege, to go on someone's website and act like a fucktard that makes America great!
I was over at Michele's today farting around and she posted a thread about the existence of God in a world filled with evil, how can God let it happen, blahblahblah.
I read through the comments and listened to what most of the people had to say, and there were some well thought out opinions there.
People go back and forth about God's seemingly interventionist nature, apparently discriminating between those worthy of life and those who's families can hanlde the tragedy of death.
One guy posted an excerpt from an interesting article on human suffering and the important lessons the experience of suffering teaches us.
But the whole thing leaves me wondering what the hell is so 'hopeless' about a worldview where God is absent? I mean, if the existence of evil is in some way proof of the existence of God, how could being without God be worse? Wouldn't it nullify the existence of evil? If God is Love, and people did as best they could to show love to eachother, then I say yes; a world without a supreme being would be filled with love if we as humans chose to be fucking nice to eachother more than once a year.
It's quite an interesting trip when I really start thinking about people, and how we see our world. It seems that most of us go through life without ever really thinking about the how the other six or so billion people in this world have lives that are just as important, happy, stressful, and exciting as our own. We hardly ever stop to consider the impact one tiny action of ours has on any of a myriad number of people we come in direct or indirect contact with. And everyone does it or has done it. I mean, when was the last time anyone thought to themseslves, "I wonder how this will effect the lives of others?", before they did something. Would that it happened several times a day.
That guy in Michele's post who killed the family while driving drunk; was most definitley not thinking about the other people in this world. At several points that evening, the driver could have opted not to show such disregard, but failed. The price this person, and unfortunately many others have to pay is the awareness that humans are capable of evil. Evil doesn't come from Hell or Satan. It comes from us choosing to be self-centered and ignorant and...well, generally prickish.
It's the stupid things in life that seem to come back to haunt us. Thinking we can get away with something just one more time and then shooting ourselves in the foot. I understand that being considerate won't eradicate suffering, nor do I think anything is capable of removing suffering from the human experience. But wouldn't it be nice if our suffering came from something we couldn't blame each other for? Wouldn't it be nice if suffering was merely a natural condition predicated by disease or freak accidents? Or maybe, this evil that results from humans is naturally predicated in that it is resultant of human behavior. A natural stimuli of it's own.
So the trip to Georgia was quite that. The place I went to is so small, that I couldn't mapquest it. So I googled it, and discovered that it's consistently mispelled, went back to mapquest and was able to locate it under its mispelled name. Ha!
The town has a population of 402, and no traffic lights. I take that back - there's a blinking yellow light somewhere on the main state road running through town. There's one store (a quick mart of some type), an elementary school, and a Methodist church. That's it man - nothing else. I have no fucking clue what those 402 people do to support themselves because there's no mechanics, repairmen, tradesmen, shops, retailers, industry, or any goddamn thing there. I figure they must take welfare checks or something.
Couldn't get cellphone reception out there either. Not that I was expecting a call or anything, but with that fucking dusche running around TV asking "Can ya hear me now? How 'bout now?", acting like you can get cell reception all over the place; you'd think they'd be able to follow through. If I ever see that prick out and about I'm shoving that phone in his ass and shouting "How 'bout now bitch!"
Pumped my great uncle for info on the war. Not interested necesarily in the history, just think primary sources are absolutley amazing. And for a guy who's eighty some-odd years old, that mofo can ratchet-jaw all day long. I mean, I asked him about the war, and three hours later I came out of my trance and he was still talking about how he and his buddies would weasel out of 20-mile radius vacation leave.
And just in case someone is planning to make Screven County, Georgia a vacation destination anytime soon I have a few pieces of advice. Firstly, bring something to do, because there ain't jack shit to do unless you enjoy watching grass grow. I mean, even if you wanted to do something, you couldn't because you're so far away from everything that it would take you five hours just to drive somewhere where there was something to do. Second, bring bug spray. And by that I mean call Orkin and have them hook you up with whatever they have in the way of immunizations, because the mosquitoes are so damn big they can screw chickens standing flat-footed. I saw the shit, but couldn't get the digicam in time.
And finally, I need to impart some knowledge I gained while on vacation. This is important too, so pay attention. Dogs can eat chocolate. Everyone always says not to let the dog eat chocolate because apparently it makes their hearts explode or some shit. This weekend, my cousin's lab mix knocked a two-layer double chocolate cake off the buffet table, and ate more than half of that son of a bitch. That dog ate more cake than I could eat in one sitting, and took it like a champ. Fuck, I bet there's a majority of people out there that couldn't eat as much chocolate as this dog did without getting sick. The fucker didn't barf, moan, or anything. Matter of fact, I think she took a nap. We weren't even in the house when she did it, so she had the opportunity to eat as much of that cake as she possibly could. Amazing.
Driving down to Georgia for the 4th. My grandmother grew up in a tiny farmhouse in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere near the South Carolina border. When her mom died, her brother kept the house. About ten years ago, my dad's cousin bought the house right next to it. We've been having 4th of July get togethers there for longer than I or my parents have been alive.
It's an abnormal place. The town is too small for a traffic light, a grocery store, or even a McDonald's; but it has it's own cemetery. The forecast is mid 90's and humid, with a 20-30% chance of a thunderstorm everyday. There's not much to do in the modern sense of the phrase; but I do plan on seeing if I can milk a few odd stories from some of the old folks.
I like old people. They're the best kind of historians - primary sources with personal bias.
We've got to drive through South Carolina, the Mecca of imported explosives, to get there. I plan on spending a good one or two hundred bucks on the good stuff that's illegal at home and in Georgia. Hey, blowing stuff up is a human past time. Thinking of taking the camera along and doing some kind of montage when I get back. Huzzah bitches!