Totally amazing predictions!

This has been circulating amongst my four friends:

Then one of these friends axed what I thought.  She axed me, "What does your big, fantastic, super-sexy, super-hot, totally amazing intellect think about all this?"  I blushed for a bit and then wrote some crap.  I've noticed that my writing voice is just as self-important in private emails as it is in public posts.

I don't know.  The fact is there's no more money.  If the Dems were running things then we'd just have a different set of conspiracies.  What put GM into bankruptcy is going to take down just about every local and state government soon.  That is - most government budgets go to pay for pensions and health care for old people - the most fantastic ponzi scheme ever conceived.  And we're at the bottom of the investment pool, my dear.  Current government workers don't get the gold-encrusted benefits your parents and mostly your grandparents get so they're not totally to blame.  But we can blame everybody for feeling *entitled* to receive free government money and services.

I'm taking unemployment so I'm a hypocrite.

Oh, and the baby boom fuckers start retiring in mass quantities this year.  And, as you know from personal experience, people are living way too long.  Diseases that normally thin the herd at old age aren't working anymore so we've got incurable, expensive shit like dementia to contend with.  My dad is a prime example.  He's 87 and has seen an extra ten years that he would have missed otherwise.  The last few years have been very expensive for taxpayers.  I don't know exactly how much and why would I?  I'm not paying for it!  Then there's the overall bad health of the average fat-ass American.

So, maybe turning over insolvent municipalities to corporations wouldn't be so bad.  At least they know how to read a fucking balance sheet and have an intrinsic motivation to get it into equilibrium.  I'm sure most of these cities and states are in even worse shape than we can imagine.  Fifty years worth of elected fools in and out every two years, running up the collective credit card.  Municipal bond debt is legion, but you didn't axe me about that.  And the most guilty of them all is the federal government.  There's approximately $50-100 trillion in open-ended entitlement commitments out there.  That's off-balance sheet stuff and doesn't include the $14 trillion debt.  Then there's the $1 trillion structural deficit they've been running since '09.

This should be a blog post instead of a message.  But you axed.  The good news is that humans finally act when things reach a nightmare, crisis level.   We're almost there.  We've still got a ways to go because we still think that if we ignore things hard enough they will go away.

It will sort itself out and make for good TV.

Challenge Part 2

A friend of mine is taking a writing course and I thought it might do me some good to play along.  He sent me the syllabus.  Part one was to do some reading.  It was a story about this kids yard.  It was based in a rural, farmland setting so I had no reference point.  But I read it.  Part two is to write some thoughts on it.  Part three is to write 400 words about my childhood home or yard.  Follows.

My childhood yard was okay. The backyard wasn't particularly big, but it was a solidly, middle middle-class size nonetheless. It was the sort of backyard you'd pick up at Sears. It was a good value for my parents, who had to save up to get it. Some wealthy people get big backyards from their mother, like the Kardashian sisters. Their mother married a rich lawyer. He defended celebrities against the sort of legal trouble they get into, like driving while drunk, drug use, and murdering their ex-wives.

Anyway, I used to have to mow the lawn. I didn't mind doing that chore because I liked to make the lines in the grass line up. Our grass wasn't the best but our lines were. It looked like the infield of a major league baseball diamond. It was easiest to go east-west but I'd change it every week or so and go north-south or southeast-northwest. Later on my parents put a gazebo in the center of the backyard and that made getting the lines lined up quite a bit harder, but that just made it more of a challenge. They got the gazebo because my mother liked to imagine herself sitting in it and my father liked the thought of taking pictures of people standing in front of it. By that time I was a teenager and didn't use the backyard much myself since it didn't contain anything I wanted to smoke.

Before the gazebo arrived and my older brother departed for California, I'd play generalized sports with him. My Dad never did anything with me - like he was supposed to. So, my brother filled in. He is eight years older than me so he was always better at everything which used to make me real mad. We'd play catch with a frisbee and I got pretty good. If you threw it a certain way it would fly in parabolas, or if you held it level upon release, it would fly as straight as Tom Cruise. If it was windy the wind would catch it at the last second, the frisbee would rise a few inches, and hit you in the face. Sometimes I would miss a catch or didn't want to catch it in the first place because my brother threw it too fucking hard, and then it would crash into the aluminum siding on the back of the garage.

The neighbors must have hated that sound.

My Dad must have hated all those dents in the siding.

He never said a word about them.

Challenge

As a purported writer, I've decided that I should challenge myself with daily writing goals.  This will help keep my skills sharp.  That's why I used the word purported.  So, I'm challenging myself to write one post per day for the next day.  Here goes:

The weather isn't horrific.

Now I can get back to The Sopranos marathon on A&E.

Alaska

Just when we've finally got enough cops, doctors, and lawyers, to fill the E.R and the swanky corner office with a two year supply of donuts, now we learn that we need plenty of shows about Alaska too.  We've got some idiots with annoying facial hair mining for gold, we've got a new show where some people fly a plane to remote areas and deliver porn, and we've got Sarah Palin.  What is there to say about her that hasn't already been said?  I wouldn't fuck her with a ten foot dick or a even a stolen dick - whichever happens to be nearby.  I'll leave it there.

We'll have a new season of Deadliest Catch soon which is getting tiring after years of watching fishermen catch crabs, transfer crabs onto shelves, sort crabs, and finally, transfer crabs into tanks.  Even the concocted drama aspect of the show is getting old.  Will they catch enough crabs?  Will they run into a snowstorm?  Will the traps have enough crabs in them after this commercial?

I'd like to see a show called, "Alaska:  It's Just Too Fucking Cold Here."  I know what you're thinking.  But the wild, final frontier, nature of Alaska is so beautiful!  A hypothermia victim is a beautiful sight to a starving polar bear.  Let's have another show called, "Alaska:  Let's Plunder Its Resources While We're Still Able."  There's a reason why there are no drilling rigs or miners in Malibu.  It's just too nice and we wouldn't want to fuck it up.

They had a show called "Ice Road Truckers."  I kinda liked that one.  The truckers had to deliver equipment to a well-capitalized, corporate mining operation.  Occasionally a truck would fall through the ice into a lake just after the commercial.  That one was good.  The newest one is, "Alaska:  Gold Rush."  This one features a half-dozen fools, their children, and an old guy with an irritating, squeaky, old man voice, who likes to drive a tractor into a ditch while shouting to his idiot son, "There's gold in that ditch!"  His irritating voice is offset by his gray beard which is, thankfully, well-trimmed.  Anyway, he narrowly misses the ditch and runs over another miner's child.  A hungry bear sees a fresh ground beef brunch, so he runs over to eat the child's remains.  This show has some promise.

But they're idiots.  Agnico Eagle Mines (NYSE: AEM) can pull gold out of the ground at a cost of $420 per ounce.  I doubt the idiots find much gold and I doubt their cost-basis is anywhere under the spot price when the show was filmed.  Instead of putting all their money into tractors and supplies, they should have just bought a precious metals ETF.

Cat

This is little Stephen.  He's been added to the small list of mammals that I allow into my life.

Staunch Defense of Hot-cakes

I'm getting a bit sick of you people and the way you talk.  You're still using expressions from the 20th century or even worse, the 19th century.  Think up some new ones - willya please?  Do I have to be responsible for all the creativity around here?  The next time I hear you say, "I'm a staunch defender of candidate first-name last-name," I promise I'll beat you within in an inch of your life.

Whoops.  An inch of your life is a worn-out expression, isn't it?

Let's try this: I promise I'll beat you within 2.54 centimeters of your life.  The rest of the world uses the metric system, by the way.  We should at least update the units of measure in our tired expressions.

Anyway, everybody is a staunch defender or a firm believer.

"I firmly believe in universal healthcare and I'm a staunch supporter of abortion rights."

"Good for you!  I slightly believe in national healthcare.  I'm not sure about the universe.  I'd like to staunchly punch you in the fucking face though, or the abdomen - if you're pregnant."

Here's another one that bugs me to no end.

"They're selling like hot-cakes."

My mother uses the word hot-cake.  She's 87 years old.  A hot-cake is actually a donut. [Edit 1/5/10:  I asked my mother about this and she said a hot-cake is a pancake.  She added, "I really don't fucking know what a fucking hot-cake is.  What the fuck, son?"]  I imagine they were invented when my mother was a little girl and I imagine they sold like hot-cakes when they first came out.  Hot-cakes sales must have surely skyrocketed.

Incidentally, I'll be firing skyrockets at my house this next 4th of July.  Maybe you can attend?

Things always skyrocket.  Unemployment.  Crime.  Syphilis infections two months after a Republican or Democratic National Committee convention.

"I've got good news!  Our 3rd quarter revenue is going to be higher than expected.  Hot-cake sales are skyrocketing.  They're off the chart!"

"Really?  Maybe we should get a bigger chart.  Hey, have you seen my horseless carriage keys?  I must have misplaced them.  I have to get to the store - they're having a sale on hot-cakes and skyrockets.  I have to go before it gets dark - crime is at epidemic proportions."

I was gonna do some more ranting in a similar vein about how proportions are always epidemic, but I'm bored with this piece already.  You can't hit a home-run everyday.  Over and out.

Thornhill - Apparently Not Very Hot

Here's the insulting, bullshit summary from my report from an allegedly qualified radiologist.

In regards to the MRI: "... unremarkable appearance of the brain."
In regards to the MRA: "... unremarkable intracranial angiogram."

It's a terrible thing to be judged as unremarkable.  They always tell you, "Everybody is good at something.  Everybody is special," but it's just another fucking lie.  This guy really rubs my face in it though.  I'm at my lowest point in years and my self-esteem has plummeted at least 65 points but he couldn't care less.  He's a sadist.  I'm sure he's seen a lot of brains over the years and I would have thought this fact should have increased his sensitivity to the feelings of those in my position.  Not so.  Instead he launches an angry, ad hominem attack.

"... the major flow voids appear unremarkable ... the globes, orbits, and mastoid air cells are unremarkable."

I'm not going to repeat what he wrote about my basilar cisterns.  It's repugnant.  In short - I'm crushed.  I've spent so much time working on things like my distal vertebral arteries and it's been a complete waste.  I used to think I had a healthy and realistic impression of my body.  I used to think I was somewhat attractive - but it's clear now that I've been delusional.  I'm the proverbial ugly ducking.  It's worse than that.  I'm homely on the inside.  I've been living a lie.  I've got to give some serious thought about what to do now that my hopes and dreams for the future are gone.  I may have to remove myself from society so as not to upset the delicate sensibilities of remarkable people.