Category Archives: Life

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Turkey – Mount Koressos, House of Mary

When you travel in groups compromises are always necessary. When the group disagrees you can sometimes divide up or sneak off on your own for a while. Other times you just have to deal with it. When you share hotels, cars, buses, trains, and meals with your companions, it’s generally not a good idea to fight all the time. I’ve been on trips where this happens and it truly kills everything.

Being in Turkey I had about five-hundred things I wanted to do, history being at the top of my list. So when we were headed to Ephesus I was fired up. We only had one day there. I could spend six days in Ephesus and not get bored. But then, other members of the group wanted to take most of that one morning and visit the supposed House of Mary which is near Ephesus. I hear this and I’m like, “Oh, uh, …” [checks watch] (I did indeed wear a watch then, which seems strange now.)

I was raised Irish / English / Sicilian Catholic, so you know it’s seriously in my blood. But I was also raised with a light touch of it. My own Grandmother would frequently talk with us about this or that doctrine, Pope, etc, that she disagreed with, alongside her own take on life. It’s a very liberating American take on religion. Nowadays, depending on the barometric pressure outside, I can either truly believe or am an atheist or whatever. A lot of it depends on my mood. So basically I would not consider myself very religious, but I really do try. In this Turkey travel group though were several ultra-hyper religious types. So they wanted to go see the House of Mary and were very set upon it.

Given how much of Ephesus was on my brain I could have protested. I let it go in the name of cohesion. This was the right choice. I figured it would be nice to see the mountains, maybe say a prayer, and generally just enjoy the ride. This was exactly what happened. I don’t regret it.

The full titled House of the Virgin Mary sits atop Mount Koressos which is a few miles from Ephesus. It’s a small house and religious shrine. By which I mean it’s a religious shrine that reminded me a lot of the shrines in Asia, specially Japan. As in, it’s a commercial tourist destination. There’s very little religion about it. In say Japan, sometimes you’ll be walking around temple grounds and there’ll be these people hocking Hello Kitty fascism toys from stalls. I always found this odd, to me a dead quiet church is my pinnacle of prayer. But in many cultures it’s not a big deal to meld commercial and religious ideas on the same site. This is the case with Mount Koressos.

It’s like going to the Mary exhibit at Disneyland. There are several cafes, a wishing wall, tourist buses everywhere, magic water, it’s quite the atmosphere. And this place has quite the crazy tale as well. My first thought was, “There’s no way Mary was there.” I mean, what do I know? But still, it didn’t seem quite likely to me. I get it, Popes have visited this place, but still. Feast your brains upon this tale of discovery:

– Anne Catherine Emmerich, German nun, mystic, and later saint, has a bunch of visions which she imparts to the brains of others.

– Clemens Brentano, author, writes books based upon her visions about Jesus, etc, etc.

– In 1852, Brentano provides a rough description from a vision of a house near Ephesus that John supposedly built for Mary where she lived out her days.

– In 1881, French priest, Indiana Jones copycat, and lunatic Julien Gouyet uses this book’s description to find and identify the house on top of Mount Koressos. Nobody believes him.

– But by 1891 at the urgings of Sister Marie de Mandat-Grancey, folks get onboard with this idea and the house is made a shrine and taken under management. The first Pope shows up within a decade. Half-a-dozen other Popes have also visited.

So is one to believe this tale of visions, translated through a kook author, and a bunch of people wandering around the 19th century Ottoman countryside with a book in their hand? I’d have to say I don’t. I’m pretty sure that whatever Mary was that she died close to her birthplace and is buried out there. But whatever, it’s all good, people can pray anywhere. That’s the cool part about prayer.

And whatever the house is, it is indeed neat to visit. It’s very old and probably a good example of the style and architecture of ancient dwellings in this part of the planet.

 

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Side of the House of the Virgin Mary

 

When there, I kind of separated myself from the group and puttered around. When you go inside the house it’s a converted chapel, very small. I didn’t take a picture inside as it didn’t seem right. I prayed for a short bit and then was on my way. It was a nice moment, but not what I would call any kind of religious experience.

 

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Not my shot, taken from Wikipedia. Note the very ancient hallowed c-grade velvet rope, two Apostle endorsed codex plastic information placards, and Papal holy water blessed exit sign

 

Outside there is a wishing / prayer wall that folks can leave notes on. There are thousands of notes. There is also a water source that is said to heal or grant wishes or whatever. I did not drink the water

For me, the ground was the better experience. This was my chapel visit.  This was my Mount Koressos:

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I’ve got dozens of various shots of nothing but the woods from all across the world. Two of my favorites are on my desk, one from American and one from Japan. I’m always struck by the differences and similarities between them. Wherever you are, the woods are always similar enough that you can recognize ideas, feelings, trends that join you to that remote location. In the sense that the woods near your own home and country do much the same. It’s that spark of fellowship and belonging that most closely identifies us as part of one human race and planet. It’s only there for a moment, but it’s a good feeling. Nature, God, whatever, does that to you. Amen.

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Turkey – Marmaris harbor

The next three posts are going to be about my trip to Turkey and it’s history.  These will be a little personal for a variety of reasons.  This below shot is of my first day there, specifically Marmaris, which is where we landed.

Marmaris used to be a small fishing village but has essentially turned into the most tourist of tourist destinations.  It’s not a bad place, we had a good time, but it’s among the most aggressive I’ve seen in terms of fleecing the visitors.

For example, one of the best meals I’ve ever had was in Marmaris.  Turkish meats, prawns, the thing where they cook the fish inside a salt shell, Turkish beer, it was awesome.  Unfortunately the owner lied to our faces about his prices and tried to fleece us at the register.  We had to negotiate him down which was tiresome.  Overall, well worth the meal, just silly.

Marmaris has a pretty decent harbor and throughout history it’s been used by Greeks, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Turks, and so on for both trade and military purposes.  Today’s it’s all tourism though, specifically Russians.

I would imagine that after Turkish pilots shot down the Russian jet and Putin cancelled tourist visas that Marmaris’ economy suffered immensely.  With Putin and Erdogan’s dictator’s détente, I figure they’re looking forward to a profitable upcoming tourist season.

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Sunset over Marmaris harbor

 

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gadget makers to turn humanity into amorphous liquid sphere based creatures

Just how lazy does Silicon Valley and the corporate world think you are? Apparently, very much. Everything you currently do is too hard. Just think about the difficulties you confront every day:

a) You need to remember to set your own alarm clock

b) Pull your corporeal form out of bed on time even though you’d rather sleep in

c) Let your dogs outside so they expel waste on grass instead of your floor

d) Feed your dogs in order that they might live

e) Take a shower so that you might live

f) Start your car in order that it might move

g) Drive your car so that you can go someplace requiring your presence

Hell, that’s all just in the first 30 minutes of the day. What horror. But don’t worry, the freaks are out to assist you. Every single one of these actions will soon be performed by a gadget. Pretty soon, you won’t need to do anything. You can just sit back and let machines do all the hard stuff. Your self-worth will become wrapped up in how much of your daily life is monetized by somebody you’ll never meet. How fulfilling!

You know, I think one of the main arguments behind this technology is that it’s supposedly liberating. If you’re not worried about feeding your dogs or setting your own alarm clock, that’s time you could be painting sweet art or writing a novel. I kind of get that, but eventually such thinking reaches a point of no return. Once you take the most basic and menial of human tasks and turn them over to a machine because it’s convenient, people are basically just ceding their humanity. They’ve crossed over from liberating, to stupid, or even lazy.

Doing basic human level stuff is necessary to have a rich and fulfilling life. A lot of it is a colossal pain in the ass. Who on Earth loves to do laundry? But that’s called life. It keeps you honest. I get the idea that the imagined end state of Silicon Valley’s quest (other than to get all your money) is to place a live human inside a liquid sphere where all they do is feel pleasure while all their worldly tasks are handled by machines. To me, this is a version of waking death.

To that liquid sphere end, CES is the annual gadget, electronic freak show in Vegas. It’s the chance for the world’s technological elite to show off how insane they are. I’m beginning to think that if every year we hired a bunch of twisted alien mercenaries to carpet bomb the convention hall, that we’d all be better off as a human race.

Oh my, just take a gander at some of these supposedly “cool” new gadgets. This is the future. Today!

1) Cheaty Fishing Drone [Link Slide 1]

This thing streams video, fish finding, and soon even VR. It also lures fish with a blue light so it’s that much easier to catch a live creature for somebody’s own financial value or personal amusement. Catching a fish using this kind of technology is like constructing a hover drone that goes out, lassos a deer, and walks it over to a guy so he can shoot it with a shotgun at a range of six feet. Dude might as well be allowed to throw dynamite into the water like some brain dead moron from 1878. It’s the same thing.

cheaty drone.jpg

2) Kuri the Child Predator [Link Slide 2]

Kuri (named after the famous Japanese anime character that eats flesh) is a robot that roams around a home with cameras allowing people to keep tabs on their children and dogs when they’re either out of the house or too lazy to do it in person. It’s also equipped with a creepy robot look that CNET think is “cool just for that”. Meaning it has just the right style to give children and pets nightmares for decades. Just look at the horror of this thing. In 2043, a grown man will be asked to identify who told him to burn down the shopping mall killing hundreds. The police sketch artist will converse with this man for eight hours, and at the conclusion will have drawn a picture of Kuri.

evil kuri.jpg

3) Devolvement Shower Assembly [Link Slide 13]

See above note (e). Everything, and I mean everything in your home must go on the Internets. Every basic action is worthy of an online twist, for whatever reason. This delightful piece of technology turns your shower on and off. That’s about it. It costs $1,160. One of the most basic of human actions is yielded to a machine, for some reason. We need to pass a government law that anybody purchasing technology that replaces a basic act (such as moving one’s hand to a shower handle) should be evaluated for devolvement to caveman status, thus requiring permanent internment in a cave to match their status.

evil shower.jpg

4) Robot Assistant [13 of 37 Link Slides]

I’ve ranted enough about the Amazon Echo on this degenerate forum, I’m kind of tired with it. I guess I’m just shocked at how many companies are fighting with razor blades to be that one guy who assists people with everything from their own calendar, check weather, Internets searches, whatever. Why does any of this require help? People need to do their own shit.

5) Adult Distraction Charger [Link Slide 26]

Uses the kinetic energy of a child stroller to charge a phone or other device like a distance tracker. Because nothing says a person loves spending time with their young child like using it as another opportunity to be constantly on the phone. Nothing says a human is an evolved higher form than by having a machine tell them how far they’ve walked, rather than looking at a map and figuring it out themselves.

evil charger.jpg

6) Human Corrector [Link Slide 25 of 37]

Our winner for this year’s trip to the crypt is the “Funky Bots Atomic Bands for klutzes”. This thing apparently wraps around limbs and then coaches the person into more “graceful movement”. You heard it right. A company apparently has the gall to state they know how each human on the planet is required to walk. That most basic of human tasks since 10,347 BC. How do you tend to walk? You’re wrong. This company is right. Never mind that each human being is inherently unique in both a mental and physical way. Nope, you’re just an algorithmic calculation away from being instructed and corrected on how you transition from your bed to shower, or car to front door. Hey, I get it, life is hard. But walking? This act needs correction, assistance, technology? Instead, let’s just buy people who buy this product one of those little motorized carts people ride in the grocery store. I’m sure the cart is cheaper than this wearable technology. I’ll even buy it myself using my own international gold reserves. My only caveat is each cart user I buy for must display two pennants from the back of the cart. They say “I am an amorphous creature!” and “I’ve given up!”

evil corrector.jpg

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absurdity of the week – auto texts

It’s just short of midnight, ready for bed, dogs are settling in and my phone gets a text. So naturally at this time of night, the brain goes into partial overdrive. What could this be:

– Friend or family member is in trouble

– One of my coworkers is letting me know they won’t be in next morning due to car accident, sick, sick child, blimp attack, sick pet, dirigible attack

– The government is texting me to inform of its surrender to a previously unknown belligerent alien race; report to Main Street by 8 am for indoctrination

– A prince in Nigeria has been kidnapped by eleven beautiful women and needs my help

– The text is from my dog, I turn around and he’s snickering on the rug, but I search him and can’t find a phone

– The text is from me, from the future, warning me to stock up on massive amounts of cheese; which I ignore; and thus do not possess the required amount of cheese next year to pay the Moroccan bazaar dealer for the amulet; thus failing in my attempt to save Short Round, who is thus impaled on a bed of spikes within the shrinking death chamber

Ah, no, not any of this. Instead, it’s a free text message from my cellphone provider. They want to inform me that my monthly payment has processed. Apparently, that’s emergency information at this time of night. Seriously.

You know, these texts are generated by robots. You would think they’d program the auto text not to arrive except during normal working hours. Apparently this simple idea is beneath the conceptual understanding of one of the planet’s most financially rich corporations. I shake my head at this stuff. How stupid are these people?

I want to develop intricate computer hacker skills. Then, I’ll hack the cellphone network and direct it to auto text the entire executive staff only between 1 am and 3 am. Each of these brilliant auto texts will be one of my above scenarios. I will continue said harassment until these executives resign, develop insomnia, and/or go insane. I figure I should be able to implement this diabolical plan within the next three days or so. Stay tuned into this pointless blog for the eventual results. I cannot fail!

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a comparison in game shows; and the global stage

Once upon a time there was this weirdo game show that dumb kids like me could watch called Legends of the Hidden Temple. Perhaps some of you remember this from your glory days of childhood football, candy, school lockers, and bad 90’s pop bands. This was during the highlight days of Nickelodeon, 1993-1995. A simpler entertainment era before the crushing reality of the Internets would consume all our lives.

The show featured six teams of two kids (one boy, one girl) who competed in some type of fake Mayan temple. They had to conduct physical feats, answer riddles, and generally do hard stuff. The show apparently had tough tryouts. Hosted by game show robot Kirk Fogg, it also had a second quasi host in a large stone talking head, former Simpsons basement dweller, five time convicted sex offender, Indiana Jones veteran, and jai-li extraordinaire Olmec. Olmec talked to the kiddies and gave them a background on the history of the artifact they had to find in the actual hidden temple challenge at the end of the show.

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Olmec tells Kirk that his glowing red eyes are actually a brain tumor.

I enjoyed this show because it was different, entertaining, had history, and was extremely competitive. In only 22 minutes of air time they had to cull the flock with 10 of 12 children summarily dismissed from play. In the first two minutes of the show four kids are eliminated in the moat challenge. In all their lives these kids might be on national television only once, and they’re gone in only two minutes. The knowledge test was next, that milled an additional four young ones. After a quick third round they got down to the final two who competed in the temple. I’m not sure if I’m remembering this right, but I seem to recall that the temple itself was hard, a substantial portion of participants lost. Turns out I’m right, the Huffington Post says only 32 of 120 teams (26%) actually won the whole thing.

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Would they ever make a kid’s game show again that required the use of helmets and mouthguards?

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Kirk explaining to these two, that since they made it this far, it indicates their likelihood of becoming future billionaires has increased by 723%.

It was a neat show, but it couldn’t have made much money because they cancelled it after only three seasons. Nobody would never make such a show again. After more than two decades, the following factors are disqualifying in our modern newfangled era:

– The show would be deemed racist for its cartoon depiction of various Amerindian cultures.

– When about 1/3 of American children are chronically obese, I’m not sure they could roll out a game show that required this level of childhood physical brutality.

– Nobody knows anything about history anymore, so those knowledge questions are out. I figure at least 78% of American children today think we fought the Redcoats in the Civil War.

– They would never get away with that level of competition, cutting 10 kids in 22 minutes. Today they would only drop 2 kids and both of them would still get trophies or some other kind of big consolation prize.

In other words, several key skills which I consider essential to a reasonably functioning society are lost from a modern kid game show. Specifically:

1) Physical fitness

2) A decent knowledge of history

3) The ability to comprehend that life is a vicious mill fest of suck, and while knowing that, still press on and do great things

Nickelodeon currently broadcasts only one game show. It’s called Paradise Run, and is made by the same production company that did Hidden Temple. I give you this description from Wikipedia:

At the Hilton Waikoloa Village in Hawaii, three teams of two children race around the Hilton Waikola Village competing in three different challenges that are given to them by Daniella Monet through the tablets that are provided for them. The teams are sorted by Team Makani, which is Hawaiian for “wind”, Team Nalu, which is Hawaiian for “wave”, and Team Ahi, which is Hawaiian for “fire”. The first team to complete all three challenges wins a four-day, three-night trip at the hotel while the runner-ups receive consolation prizes. During the completion of the challenges, they must take a selfie on a tablet and send it to Daniella. Once all three challenges are completed, they must solve a riddle. The riddle’s answer is a suite where Daniella and the parents of the teams are waiting, and the team must race there.

I’ve not seen this show, so I suppose it could be awesome. But I doubt it. Note these key points that make me want to vomit in my mouth:

a) Naked corporate sponsorship in a game show made for children

b) Only six children compete, instead of twelve, thus reducing the elimination factor by 50%

c) They use fucking tablets, which they use to take selfies, …, for fuck’s sake

d) The losers receive prizes

e) The game’s end state is nothing more than a hotel room prize directly related to said sponsorship

f) The limp wristed title

paradiserun.jpg

Note the difference in contestant attire between this and Hidden Temple.  Specifically the lack of helmets, mouthguards, gloves, elbow pads, knee pads, and anything else requiring the children to do more than tap a tablet.

[claps hands in an empty room]

Where am I going with this, I mean other than to rant about game shows? Well, two places. In case you haven’t noticed, the world is a shit show right now. Two things in particular yesterday and today, the Israeli-Palestinian quagmire, and Syria.

You’ve got Kerry out there giving a speech on Israel. And you’ve got a Syria cease fire done today where Turkey, Iran, Russia, the Rebels, and Syria basically did a deal without America in the room.

You know, I kind of agree with a lot of what Obama and Kerry preach. Some of Kerry’s comments on Israel’s potential darkening religious nuthouse path are spot on. And you can make a valid and reasonable argument that Obama’s path of non-intervention in Syria was the best course among all the terrible options. But you know what doesn’t help, the messengers. Obama and Kerry have to be about the worst people to deliver this tact in American foreign policy.

Kerry comes off on the podium like that pretentious uncle who always complains too much and nobody listens to. Obama’s professorial pauses are enough to elicit yawns from even the most jaded of international diplomats. These two guys would have hated Legends of the Hidden Temple. Paradise Run seems right up their alley.

Now don’t get me wrong, this is not a thank god they’re leaving so Trump can fix things message. Trump wouldn’t watch Legends of the Hidden Temple because it would require him to sit still for 22 minutes and not run his mouth. Trump is not the answer to this, and in any case, he’s such an outlier to the general American leadership psyche.

So I guess where I’m going is this is a lament. Obama and Kerry I think are more along the lines of the leaders that American culture is inclined to produce in the future. A bunch of ultimately weak people unfit to deal with the dangers of this planet. If you believe in a planet that should walk a path of growing freedom and democracy, that should be enough to trouble you, because nobody but America can guide that path.

Would they ever make something like Legends of the Hidden Temple ever again? I think not. Will America ever return to the global stage as a strong leader again? I hope so. But I fearfully wonder, what if not?

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Don’t dial America, it won’t answer, it’s too busy watching the delights of Paradise Run.

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we help you spice up your office Christmas atmosphere

Hopefully by the time anybody reads this nonsense post their office Christmas experiences will be long over and the weekend has begun.  Which is fine, you can table this for next year.  I’m sure you’ll remember it.  The brilliance on display within this blog is considered timeless.  My dogs swear by it.  Why would they lie?  It’s not like they’re entirely dependent upon me for food or anything.

At the new gig, I’ve discovered it’s pretty standard for folks to pass around Christmas cards along with a little piece of chocolate or whatever.  This kind of caught me off guard.  I’ve never seen this occur at any other job I’ve held.  At first I was a bit off put as I’m quite the introvert, but over time I’ve come to somewhat get behind this idea.  It’s a nice touch of positive energy in an otherwise ground down current planetary status.

I didn’t participate this year as I hadn’t planned on anything.  Plus I don’t really have much of a family to put on the card.  My dogs won’t sit still for eight seconds.  So a camera shot would not work unless I partially sedated them.

I also think my brain is still stuck in the beat down mindset of my last job, which was a mess of a place that I hated.  And I wondered, what kind of cynical card I could hand out to all them, my former coworkers.

Well, I’m glad you asked!  You can use these next year, if you hate your work as much as I did.  Just to spice things up.  Oh my.  This is the part where a post goes off the usual rails.  I mean, again.  [claps hands in empty room]

 

Audience: The Perky Talker

Gift: A small vial of pure dust.

Card Picture:

grave

My Handwritten Caption: “Great news!  Just 12 days left that you have to survive to make it through another year where you’ve foregone your future bleached skeleton status.”

 

Audience: The In Your Face Trump Supporter

Gift: A Miniature Jester’s Hat

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “You’ve been had.   You’re not going to get anything you want for Christmas.  The swamp will not be drained.  You’re not getting a wall.  Your own children no longer believe in Santa.  Congrats.  :(”

 

Audience: The In Your Face Hilary Supporter

Gift: A One Dollar Bill

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “You’ve been had.  Your Christmas is ruined.  But she’ll still spend hers within the torturous confines of her $27.3M mansion.  Please find enclosed this $1 bill which you can light a cigarette with.  To experience what she does when she does the same with a $1K bill and a $10K cigar.  Joy.  :(”

 

Audience: The Tyrannical Boss

Gift: An Authentic Nazi Broche You Procured from a Fifth Rate Bulgarian Arms Dealer

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “Since 1941, the term ‘Nazi Party USA’ has been available for use via copyright.  I think you have what it takes to return it to its days of former glory.  Just be sure to post your efforts via Facebook.  I’ll friend you explicitly for that purpose.”

 

Audience: The Clueless Boss’s Boss

Gift: A Handwritten Hardbound Copy of the Office’s Own Basic Policy

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “I’d ask you to pick a card, any card, but honestly, it doesn’t matter which one.  Just pick any of them, the result is the same.”

 

Audience: The Kind Middle Aged Mother

Gift: A Chocolate

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “Merry Christmas to you and your family!”

 

Audience: The Beaten Coworker

Gift: A Resume Writing Guide

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “Don’t worry, Brother, it can only get worse from here.”

 

Audience: The CEO

Gift: A Baseball Bat

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “Have you considered a profitable future venture within the Bangladeshi garment trade?”

 

Audience: Jesus (mailed to his castle in Hawaii)

Gift: Beer

Card Picture:

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My Handwritten Caption: “They say you suffered as we did, but then, you never experienced a cubicle.  But then again, they didn’t have beer back then either, so I guess we’re even.”

 

Merry Christmas, friends!

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people will just walk on by

I’m becoming convinced that the local grocery store parking lot is haunted.  It’s some type of weird nexus of the universe where dark forces collide while folks go to and from their shopping.  Inside their bags, avocados turn black, cereal becomes stale, ice melts, and all meals cooked with the bag’s ingredients result in unfavorable family responses.

I’m wondering if one day I’ll roll out happy with my bag of food goodies and I’ll see a random car on fire.  I mean totally engulfed in 20 foot high flames.  Just because.  And there’ll be this guy sitting on the nearby bench.

It’d be 94 degrees out but this dude’s wearing a full black three piece suit complete with hat.  He’s got pale vampire skin, red eyes, and a frowny face pin on his lapel.  I see the burning car, and he just wryly pulls on his cigarette, looks me dead in the eye, and is like, “Hi.”  So I gotta run back inside and hide under the bread aisle.

As I’m strolling out of this place yesterday a woman has just immediately finished throwing her bags in the back seat of her car from her cart.  She has a driver, so she gets in the back of the car, and with one hand shoves her cart so it’s careening down the sidewalk roughly towards the cart stall.  Then she closes her door.

But the cart stall is like 50 feet away.  So naturally she didn’t stand a chance of it getting there.  Why she couldn’t walk those 50 feet to do it properly is beyond me.  As I cross the street behind her car the cart then proceeds to make a nice arc motion and circle in front of her car and into the street.  It comes to a halt in the street and is thus now blocking traffic.

Please see this expert diagram which illustrates the situation:

cart

By this point I’m across the street but keep walking because I assume she’s going to get out of the car and get her cart out of the road.  Nope.  She waves at her driver to drive off.  And so goes her car, speeding away.  And the cart is just sitting there.

So I throw up my arms in exasperation at this lady, I think I yelled “are you kidding me” though I doubt she heard, I  wave to the other car, and I push the cart out of traffic.  And it is in these moments that I’m convinced the entire human race stands no chance at all.  We’re all bound for the crypt.

I just don’t understand how any reasonable human being can do something like that and just drive off.  I know it’s a cruel harsh world with a whole bunch of bad things happening, so this is kind of just a minor rounding error.

But this sort of thing bothers me immensely because it’s indicative of rot.  I can’t even imagine how that lady must talk to a bank teller.  Or what she would do if she saw a guy get hit by a car.  Say like, a guy who was moving her cart out of the road.  She’d probably just walk / drive on by.

Sometimes those dark news stories about how pedestrians will just walk by a wounded human are all too true.  People will just walk on by.  People just don’t care.  Don’t be that way.  Don’t walk on by.  Don’t let the creepy frowny face pin guy win.

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White Christmas?

Within the confines of the hovel at my new gig I can hear music played lightly by the gal next door. This is a new concept for me as at the last place playing music without headphones was banned under penalty of confining one to the cubicle overnight while a merger of Bieber and Kanye was played via massive loudspeaker for eight straight hours. Needless to say, nobody violated this regulation. But here it’s considered okay.

This doesn’t bother me as much as I would have expected. Half the time she plays classical music which is soothing to hear as I grind away and contemplate what’d be like to actually one day have a job I enjoy. Sometimes she plays weird pop rock or whatever and I have to break out my headphones to drown it out with music of my own. This is fine too. But being the season, she’s progressed to the occasional Christmas music.

I’m not sure if I can handle this. Christmas is a long 12 days away. A lot of Christmas music is great, classic stuff. But when you really think about it a whole bunch of Christmas music is terrible. The ones where somebody whines about their relationship during the Christmas season are the worst. Nobody cares people, dating is just as much a wheat thresher in May as it is in December. Live with it.

But also, to me Christmas music is an intensely personal experience. At the height of its powers, it evokes memories of childhood where we would all pile into the van to drive to Grandma and Granddad’s place. In the dark, cold Christmas night my Dad would invariably switch over to Christmas music on the radio for the length of the drive. These are nice memories. All my grandparents and my Dad have moved onto the next realm, so the music is especially poignant. As it is, Christmas music almost becomes kind of sad for me, like a requiem.

Lots of people aren’t in the Christmas spirit either this year I guess. Go ahead and read anything online or in the papers recently and apparently the universe is over. Earth is finished. Christmas is cancelled. You’re a walking bleached skeleton. By June of this year, machines or aliens (or both) shall be our masters, dogs and cats will have lived together and procreated creating a master race of pet, The Walking Dead will have somehow become a good television show, and Trump will have become that guy in Star Wars with the wrinkled creepy monster face.

Gee wiz, I had no idea we were that doomed? Though I sadly suppose it’d be the same hysteria regardless of what loser won this last election. Hey you know I didn’t vote for either of them, both of them were terrible, but I never (and still don’t) had it in my mind that either one of them could actually destroy anything. Go read the Constitution, or contemplate how little Obama has been able to accomplish after eight years.

The way I look at, is to default back to my Grandma and Granddad. For you see, they did four Christmas days at war. Think living under Trump or Clinton would have been bad? Trying living through Christmas Day 1942. Unless you happen to live in Syria, we cannot comprehend the struggle and terror of those Christmases where whole cities and countries were being swallowed whole. My Granddad did Christmas Day 1944 under fire at the front within the Battle of the Bulge. Merry Christmas! Signed, your friend, Adolf.

This was a war that killed 300K Americans, probably around 100 million worldwide. One in nine Americans served in uniform. The equivalent number today is if four years from now 30 million Americans were in the military. This is beyond our comprehension.

So later on in their lives I have this idea that Christmas 1956, 1972, or 1986 was always very special for them. They could go back and look at their kids and grandkids and remember just how bad it’d been. Instead of all that nightmare, they could lean back on the couch, sigh deeply, and truly appreciate the joy of Christmas that surrounded them. More than anything, that war defined a whole lifetime’s existence.

Of this, I offer as further evidence the 1954 movie White Christmas. If you haven’t seen this movie, gather the kiddies and those you love, and watch this movie. It’s just too wholesome good not to watch. It’s got a great fun plot, decent music, good dancing, and is basically just an enjoyable time. But at its heart this is a movie about two guys who got shelled together doing everything they can to aid their former general and his failed business. And they get hundreds of their war buddies to help out. It’s a story where memory of the war bleeds through.

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I think that White Christmas connection lasted about seven decades. In an equally godawful presidential election of 1972, you could have voted for Nixon (liar, lunatic) or McGovern (dreamer, lunatic). But regardless of who won, you would have remembered that after Christmas 1943, it couldn’t be much worse.

And indeed, Nixon rightly got his ass kicked out of office and the country somehow didn’t implode. And if your neighbor in 1973 had voted for the other guy, then that was okay because they’d been 19 miles to your left on the front lines and so they were an alright dude regardless of who they voted for.

Now, 75 years later that type of deep societal connection is just about gone. There is literally nothing holding the vast majority of the American psyche together. This is another bother for me with Christmas music. All the good ones were written with this 1956, 1972, or 1986 mindset. These songs were written for people who’d literally been through hell, and could fully enjoy the Christmas meaning and spirit.

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“Merry Christmas, Motherfuckers!”

Who would write an appropriate hit Christmas tune today? No Kanye rapper or Bieber-like-man-child has it in them. Even if they did, would anybody listen or would people just hear it and get sad because they’re too mentally wrapped up in what Trump said about the percentage of glycerol in Twinkies on Twitter?

Do you hate your neighbor and fellow human? Maybe you should. Let’s hate everybody! Christmas spirit? Nonsense! Christmas is yet another day on the calendar to contemplate how awful everything is.

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“Hmm, 60 million have had Christmas ruined because I should never have run.  Hmm, eh, fuck it.”  [lights cigar with $1K bill inside $27.3M mansion]

I have in mind, to write this Star Trek episode. It’s a Christmas episode special. In it, Kirk, Picard, Spock, and Data roll down to some waste planet accompanied by four Red Shirts. They go exploring around. Red Shirt 1 accidently blows himself up with his own phaser. Red Shirt 2 dies from food poisoning after last night’s failed turkey mole dish (true story). Red Shirt 3 gets dragged behind a rock by what the audience sees as a crab-like shadow.

Red Shirt 4 whilst walking upon a ledge gets scared by a monster neither he or the audience can see, and he falls off the cliff to his death. So then there are Kirk, Picard, Spock, and Data investigating the ledge where Red Shirt 4 fell.

Data scans the area and he’s like, “Captain, my scans show there to be zero evidence of alien activity in this sector. It is thus reasonable to conclude, that Ensign Timmy was alone here. Before he fell.”

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Spock nods, and he’s like, “I agree, Captain. Fascinating. It is thus logical to conclude, that whatever Ensign Timmy saw, was contained solely within the confines of his mind.”

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Then Picard, looking straight at the camera, earnestly, with campy Christmas music playing, in a scene worthy of 1979 says, “Why, it would seem, that even in this Christmas season, our darkest fears can overcome us, blind us, and lead us across a fatal line. Perhaps, it is time, during this season above all, to look deep within ourselves. For our own optimism, our own guidance, our own Christmas joy.”

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And all four guys nod happily at this revelation as the music reaches its crescendo.

Then, out of nowhere a giant crab monster jumps out from behind a rock. It attacks Kirk and rips open his shirt.

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Then the crab pulls a knife.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ9FdpLfL98

Kirk spends four and a half minutes going hand-to-hand with the crab monster, ultimately beating him to death with a rock. And Kirk’s screaming and panting over the mangled crab monster corpse. Picard, Data, and Spock are just looking at him, like, “Dude, calm down.”

Eh, either way.

White Christmas? My friends, it is your choice. In the next 12 days you’ll be bombarded with the black, the dark, the unpleasant. Choose the White. Choose optimism, to love your neighbor, to be kind even to your enemies. This is what it’s about. We need more of it. Now more than ever.

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never talk to strangers

I’m kind of an introvert, and go on my merry way.  But nobody can know this if they’ve never met me.  So when somebody gets in my face out of the blue I kind of wonder what planet they’re living on.  They could be talking to anybody.  Why would anybody want to talk to me anyways?

What if I had a medical condition?  What if I turned out to be a salesman and wasted a half-hour of their day hocking ties to them?  What if I was a closet serial killer?  What if I could care less what these people had to say?  What if I let them in on the gig that Santa isn’t real?

I guess they don’t care.  It’s like they’ve got this ‘on’ switch inside their brains.  They can’t help themselves.  They instinctively interact with their fellow human without any coherent thought.  This can be a neat thing sometimes, I guess, but it can also get very weird very quick.

Today as I’m getting in my walk during lunch (I take my lunch break for exercise and eat at my desk) a guy steps in front of me and stops me.  He then proceeds to ask me a bizarre obscure question about why a downtown building is located in one place instead of the other.  Like why the builders chose that one spot.  Eh?

I’ve got no idea what he’s talking about.  He doesn’t look like he’s criminally insane, he appears a perfectly normal person.  But him stopping me like that, and the weird question were rather off the charts.  So I told him I didn’t know and was on my way swiftly.

And what was it, some day earlier this week, I can’t remember which.  I’m walking through the grocery store parking lot.  I’ve got my one big reusable bag.  I’ve also got a fist full of plastic bags which had reached end of service life.

Once upon a time you could put those old plastic bags in the local curbside recycling.  They banned that in my town, so you have to put them in the plastic bag recycling bin at the grocery stores.  I mostly use the reusable bags at the grocery store.  But will occasionally get plastic bags because they have oh so many uses other than carrying groceries (eat it bag tax politicians).

So I’ll use the plastic bags until they are unserviceable and then recycle those at the grocery.  I suppose the grocery store could just put them in the trash later, for all I know, but it’s all I can do.  Recycling is such a crap shoot.  If you doubt this, just do some reading online to find out how much of that glass you recycle is actually not currently recycled today.  This is why you should get canned beer and box wine.  They’ve fixed the can / box quality issues folks, it’s cheaper, and cans and boxes are 100% recyclable.

Anyways, so I’m strolling through the grocery parking lot with both types of bags.  A car viciously pulls right up next to me on the passenger side.  This guy is shouting at me from behind the steering wheel.  In the 1.5 seconds of mental processing time, I’m wondering where I can run, hide, or fight.

But eventually I determine that he’s shouting at me about how awesome it is that I’m recycling.  I guess he saw me carrying the old plastic bags, I guess?  I keep walking, all I offer in response is my most deadpan, “Okay.”

Then he peels out like he was escaping a robbed bank.  There was no mocking or irony in this dude’s voice.  He was dead serious.  Guy actually did an aggressive drive by on his fellow man just to voice his approval of supposed recycling.

If a brick had been at my feet, I’d have picked it up and chucked it at his car.  You can’t recycle broken rear windshields, the planet is worse off now, and it’s all your fault.  That would’ve been my robotic / lame 1986 action movie line to this idiot.

There’s a reason you tell kids not to talk to strangers.  Even us adults end up dealing with folks who in one way or another, just don’t seem wound right.  I mean, I’m a lunatic, but I’m pretty sure if I stop somebody on the street cold, my reasons and demeanor are legit.

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why does your luggage need to do your laundry?

I remain an outlier on many things, mostly because of my deranged nature. For luggage, ditto. On all my flights I figure 95% of fellow travelers are wielding the soft-side-roller-bags. I’ve still got me the 47 year old soft-duffel-bag. My prior-existence-ghost bought it for me from the Sears catalogue in 1969 and shipped it to my future self, Back to the Future style. It showed up on my doorstep one day about a decade ago with a short note saying, “Here you go,” written in blood red marker (at least I hope it was marker). The note also included various unwarranted written expletives and a big frowny face.

This bag is an awful shade of dark green, and as of about six months ago has a growing hole in the side of it. When the hole gets so big a pair of socks could ferociously escape my plan is to replace it. This bag has been kind to me. When that dark day comes, I’ll dispose of it in some kind of fitting ancient ritual involving fire, beer, and a worthy accelerant. That way, the bag’s spirit can live forever in Valhalla where a drunk thug will use it to hold his clubs and mead.

For its replacement, I won’t go with the roller bag though. I’ll still go get a fully soft-duffel-bag. Why?

1) I hate the way a roller bag constricts tight packing. The one roller bag I used for one or two trips could fit a pair of shoes, an outfit or two, and a toothpaste tube. That was it. By contrast, I can viciously cram 127 pounds of non-refined-coal into my soft bag if I so chose.

2) Poor maneuvering quality of roller bags. You could not imagine a more ridiculous design for moving forty pounds of cubic mass around a crowded airport. It’s easier to steer a canoe without an oar then turn a roller bag in traffic. I think the gross turning radius for your average rolling bag technically carries you directly through the nearby airport window and onto the tarmac. And the big baggage guy would just be standing there over your crippled frame, frowning, shaking his head, with his arms crossed.

3) Laziness. As best as I can figure, the primary advantage to using a roller bag is you can carry a lot of weight without having to hoist it upon your shoulders. In other unrelated news, 37% of American adults are chronically obese. I’ve never understood the acceptance to lose mobility, just so you can avoid throwing forty pounds on your back. Especially because people do this all the time. For example:

a) Hoist your five year old upon your shoulders through the airport.

b) Carry a bag of mulch from your car to the backyard, repeat twelve times.

c) Swipe a big bag of cat food from the till, running fast so you can get out the door before they notice your heinous crime.

d) Carry your laundry up and down the stairs, up and down the stairs, with a sock attrition rate of 17%.

e) When you were a little kid, you carried the equivalent ratio weight of forty pounds of books on your shoulders given your size at the time compared to today.

But now, all of a sudden we are incapable as a human race of carrying forty pounds for a 1/2 mile through the airport? Our future alien Overlords find this an appealing trait.

4) Carryon luggage. I’m just going to go ahead and say this (it’s okay if most of you or nearly all of you disagree), if I met the guy who invented the concept of overhead compartments, I’d punch him in the stomach repeatedly until I was physically restrained by a pack of elves. In order that the traveler may avoid an average of 11 minutes wait time upon arrival to said airport baggage claim area, the rest of us have to endure:

a) 17 extra minutes to departure time as people cram their trash into the overhead.

b) 23 extra minutes upon arrival time as people slowly and methodically retrieve their bags from the overhead.

c) Dummies trying to shove their bags into areas where a two year old would say, “won’t fit Daddi,” but they become aghast and angry at everyone when they keep trying to fit it, and it still doesn’t work.

d) Ultra-dummies who actually fight over bin space as if it were meat in a caveman world.

The only time I’ve used the overhead was when I did a whole four day trip using nothing but a small soft backpack. I had that thing so bulging there was nowhere else for it go. Otherwise, I have my small bag which goes underneath the seat, and the duffel gets checked. That’s it. Total inconvenience time towards fellow humans = less than zero.

I suppose you could make the argument that the airlines force folks’ hands due to the checked bag fee, and I kind of get that. But, I contend the overhead bin thing is not necessarily a checked bag fee fault. I mostly fly Southwest, which charges no fee, and yet I still see the same overhead bin insanity described above.

But hold on there, there’s more! Oh my, don’t you wish this post was over! Oh please, do kindly end this.

I have recently noticed, and this Post article confirms, the growing trend of hard-sided-roller-bags.

This is (apparently) to ensure the bags can take damage, you can stake your belligerent overhead bin claim like an Overlord, and a hard case allows introduction of technology. You heard me right, the tentacles of the tech world Giant Octopus aren’t content hooking up your toothbrush to the grid. Your luggage needs to get in on the action too. For whatever reason.

And so, for several hundred $ you can have luggage that contains USB ports, self-weight assessment, remote locks, does your laundry while stored within, possesses linked Wi-Fi options, location tracking, anti-squirrel defense net, battery charging, and the option to mind link with the nearest zoo animals.

Why does your luggage need to do your laundry? Bags exist to carry your stuff from one place to another. That’s it. Why is any of this technology needed in luggage? Except perhaps, as a means to separate $ from your wallet and deposit it into the account of a private equity firm.

Please do, please do join me. Return to your travel roots. Soft bags only. Fight the power, or whatever, I can’t think of a decent motto for my non-existent movement. Soft bags only. Just do it. Or else.