On Sunday afternoon, fantasy author Robert Jordan succumbed to cardiac amyloidosis, a heart disease he'd been fighting valiantly. He leaves behind a wife and family, and for fans of fantasy writing, his legacy is the Wheel of Time, one of the greatest fantasy novels of our time. His gifts to readers around the world, the eleven-volume epic fantasy, will be remembered as the first true peer of the Lord of the Rings. God bless you and your family, Robert, and thank you. We'll miss you.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Remembering the Dragon
On Sunday afternoon, fantasy author Robert Jordan succumbed to cardiac amyloidosis, a heart disease he'd been fighting valiantly. He leaves behind a wife and family, and for fans of fantasy writing, his legacy is the Wheel of Time, one of the greatest fantasy novels of our time. His gifts to readers around the world, the eleven-volume epic fantasy, will be remembered as the first true peer of the Lord of the Rings. God bless you and your family, Robert, and thank you. We'll miss you.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Job-less-ness = Rest-less-ness
Some of you may know that I lost my job to an unforseen circumstance. If you weren't privy, well now you are. Either way, unemployment is my topic of discussion for this early morning. It's so early here, most of you may not have had breakfast yet. But if you are to read and understand, I would suggest a microwaved pop-tart and a glass of cranberry. Delicious, AND nutritious!
Being unemployed has its advantages...well, there is only one. That is, if you feel like wasting away: you can sleep in as much as you want. Something might tell you though, that the pros are more outweighed by the cons than an american sumo wrestler's japan debut. For me, they are as follows.
1: The creation of a sick failure complex. If you can't do the thing you are good at well, it kind of puts a damper on your self-esteem.
2: The creation of a new pro-bono position - job hunter. Being a job hunter is a full-time volunteer position in itself, with the constancy of application fillings out, resume perfecting, the calling of employers to find out why the hell they haven't bothered to look at your resume (being as perfect as it is), and the waiting, but that's number 3.
3: The waiting. It always takes longest to hear from a potential employer when you have nothing else to think about but "I need this job soon".
4: Money. You have shit to pay for. You have things to buy people. You have rent, utilities, and student loans down the road next month. Lack of this capitalistic life-blood (don't worry. I am not a commy. I just wanted to use that term to make me sound smart.) leads to the next con.
5: Worrying. I heard from some movie or show or something, that "worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere." It was a wise quote, in my personal opinion. But to the unemployed, worrying is more like the first song you hear in the morning...it sticks with you all day.
6: Sleep deprivation. Worrying keeps you up, and it's no coincidence that you do it late at night when it's quiet and no one is around. Hence the reason why I leave the sleep timer on the TV set for after I fall alseep. Sorta works.
But the last reason is basically the snowball effect of the last 6
7: Depression. You just sit there and do nothing. You wallow in your own pool of helplessness because to you, nothing can make it right.
Thankfully, I have people around me that are holding up the dam. Word of advice: When you get to symptom 3...analyze your situation. Obviously you are getting impatient, and you want them to call soon. Step back and meditate. Think about all the things (not job related) that make you happy, and create a special place in your brain that you can travel to for future crashes (and they will happen). It will give you time to reboot, and then reassess you situation with a clear mind.
This place, I actually created, through heavy meditation. Most people do not know, but in order for me to cope with situations accurately, through meditation, I created special mechanisms (dubbed Mental Machines) that when "switched on," triggered or activated, help me measure my situations and my amount of emotional responses, and supply the right way to deal with such. The most recently created is the VR Void. The VR Void is like the happy place I spoke of in the last paragraph, but has more options. It's black with white spots like the stars in outerspace, and can supply the whole happy place, but with one major difference. The VR Void can personify and/or animalize my problems. I do this to make them easier to deal with. Basically, my lost job takes on the identity of an old sick pet. She's gonna pass away, might as well put her out of her misery, mourn the death, and eventually go back to the pet store. It will make your children happy (children being family and friends not worrying about you anymore). Makes sense?
Man, I rambled on that one for awhile. But it was kind of therapeutic.
*Lucid Stasis
Being unemployed has its advantages...well, there is only one. That is, if you feel like wasting away: you can sleep in as much as you want. Something might tell you though, that the pros are more outweighed by the cons than an american sumo wrestler's japan debut. For me, they are as follows.
1: The creation of a sick failure complex. If you can't do the thing you are good at well, it kind of puts a damper on your self-esteem.
2: The creation of a new pro-bono position - job hunter. Being a job hunter is a full-time volunteer position in itself, with the constancy of application fillings out, resume perfecting, the calling of employers to find out why the hell they haven't bothered to look at your resume (being as perfect as it is), and the waiting, but that's number 3.
3: The waiting. It always takes longest to hear from a potential employer when you have nothing else to think about but "I need this job soon".
4: Money. You have shit to pay for. You have things to buy people. You have rent, utilities, and student loans down the road next month. Lack of this capitalistic life-blood (don't worry. I am not a commy. I just wanted to use that term to make me sound smart.) leads to the next con.
5: Worrying. I heard from some movie or show or something, that "worrying is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get you anywhere." It was a wise quote, in my personal opinion. But to the unemployed, worrying is more like the first song you hear in the morning...it sticks with you all day.
6: Sleep deprivation. Worrying keeps you up, and it's no coincidence that you do it late at night when it's quiet and no one is around. Hence the reason why I leave the sleep timer on the TV set for after I fall alseep. Sorta works.
But the last reason is basically the snowball effect of the last 6
7: Depression. You just sit there and do nothing. You wallow in your own pool of helplessness because to you, nothing can make it right.
Thankfully, I have people around me that are holding up the dam. Word of advice: When you get to symptom 3...analyze your situation. Obviously you are getting impatient, and you want them to call soon. Step back and meditate. Think about all the things (not job related) that make you happy, and create a special place in your brain that you can travel to for future crashes (and they will happen). It will give you time to reboot, and then reassess you situation with a clear mind.
This place, I actually created, through heavy meditation. Most people do not know, but in order for me to cope with situations accurately, through meditation, I created special mechanisms (dubbed Mental Machines) that when "switched on," triggered or activated, help me measure my situations and my amount of emotional responses, and supply the right way to deal with such. The most recently created is the VR Void. The VR Void is like the happy place I spoke of in the last paragraph, but has more options. It's black with white spots like the stars in outerspace, and can supply the whole happy place, but with one major difference. The VR Void can personify and/or animalize my problems. I do this to make them easier to deal with. Basically, my lost job takes on the identity of an old sick pet. She's gonna pass away, might as well put her out of her misery, mourn the death, and eventually go back to the pet store. It will make your children happy (children being family and friends not worrying about you anymore). Makes sense?
Man, I rambled on that one for awhile. But it was kind of therapeutic.
*Lucid Stasis
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
This Is Why My Daughters Will Not Be Allowed To Date Until They're Twenty-Five
Infant bikini and other fashinable ho-wear for your one-year-old
Sorry about the link, I tried to find the bikini on Gap.com but could not. If anyone can find it, please post in comments.
I remember the South Park episode a few years ago where a new children's clothing store opens in South Park, and all of the little fourth-grade girls shop there, and begin dressing like sluts. That episode resonated with me, because I have found myself in discussions about children's fashions of late, and I am starting to sound like my grandmother.
Invariably, I or someone with whom I am speaking will at one point utter the phrase "they didn't dress like that when I was their age." The problem with that statement is that we were their age ten years ago!
When I was thirteen, about three girls (in a collective grade of 120) had breasts that peeked through their t-shirts. I remember because the guys in my grade made a huge deal about it; we had only seen breasts, which at that time we called "boobies", when our parents were asleep and we were watching Cinemax after dark (ah, the days before the V-Chip). But it wasn't until junior prom where we saw any clothing that could be described as "sexy", and even then that was maybe more leg showing than normal, a deeper-plunging neckline, a backless dress. I hate sounding like my parents, but by the time kids hit the sixteen year old mark nowadays, those darned kids are prob'ly gettin' on the sex. (Okay, maybe that sounded more like grandparents, apparently from the Deep South, but you get my point)
Add this to the fact that eleven-year-olds are gettin blowjobs at the back of the schoolbus, fourteen-year-olds are playing snap-bracelet and rainbow (colored wristbands that indicate a sexual act and a competition to see who can get the most colors of lipstick on their wee-wees, respectively), and you will see where I'm going with this:
We all should have been born ten years later.
No, seriously, I really think that our society, both American and globally, are not doing a good enough job of impressing upon kids the sacredness of love and marriage. I'm not saying you should wait till you get married until you have sex, but there needs to be some kind of semblance of intimacy within a working relationship.
Sorry if you think I sound old fashioned, but the happiest people I've ever known were the ones in monogamous, loving relationships. I'm not talking about that money/power hollow happiness, I mean real happiness, the kind that fills you up with an adoration for the world around you, for the people in your life, and for yourself, the kind of happiness that, when you lie on your deathbed, you can look back and smile, knowing that you lived life the way it was meant to be lived.
And trust me, if you doubt the power of love, it's because you've never been in love. And for once, this isn' t me thinking that I've experienced enough to know this. This is the opinion of many of the greatest minds in history: writers, philosophers, spiritual leaders...read anything from Kirkegaard to Shakespeare, and you'll see what I mean.
Sorry about the link, I tried to find the bikini on Gap.com but could not. If anyone can find it, please post in comments.
I remember the South Park episode a few years ago where a new children's clothing store opens in South Park, and all of the little fourth-grade girls shop there, and begin dressing like sluts. That episode resonated with me, because I have found myself in discussions about children's fashions of late, and I am starting to sound like my grandmother.
Invariably, I or someone with whom I am speaking will at one point utter the phrase "they didn't dress like that when I was their age." The problem with that statement is that we were their age ten years ago!
When I was thirteen, about three girls (in a collective grade of 120) had breasts that peeked through their t-shirts. I remember because the guys in my grade made a huge deal about it; we had only seen breasts, which at that time we called "boobies", when our parents were asleep and we were watching Cinemax after dark (ah, the days before the V-Chip). But it wasn't until junior prom where we saw any clothing that could be described as "sexy", and even then that was maybe more leg showing than normal, a deeper-plunging neckline, a backless dress. I hate sounding like my parents, but by the time kids hit the sixteen year old mark nowadays, those darned kids are prob'ly gettin' on the sex. (Okay, maybe that sounded more like grandparents, apparently from the Deep South, but you get my point)
Add this to the fact that eleven-year-olds are gettin blowjobs at the back of the schoolbus, fourteen-year-olds are playing snap-bracelet and rainbow (colored wristbands that indicate a sexual act and a competition to see who can get the most colors of lipstick on their wee-wees, respectively), and you will see where I'm going with this:
We all should have been born ten years later.
No, seriously, I really think that our society, both American and globally, are not doing a good enough job of impressing upon kids the sacredness of love and marriage. I'm not saying you should wait till you get married until you have sex, but there needs to be some kind of semblance of intimacy within a working relationship.
Sorry if you think I sound old fashioned, but the happiest people I've ever known were the ones in monogamous, loving relationships. I'm not talking about that money/power hollow happiness, I mean real happiness, the kind that fills you up with an adoration for the world around you, for the people in your life, and for yourself, the kind of happiness that, when you lie on your deathbed, you can look back and smile, knowing that you lived life the way it was meant to be lived.
And trust me, if you doubt the power of love, it's because you've never been in love. And for once, this isn' t me thinking that I've experienced enough to know this. This is the opinion of many of the greatest minds in history: writers, philosophers, spiritual leaders...read anything from Kirkegaard to Shakespeare, and you'll see what I mean.
Hello Douchebag
Bad Thai Cops to Endure Kitty Shame
We didn't bring democracy to Thailand, it found it itself in the eighties. However, I think this is what happens when democracy is bestowed upon a nation not ready to evolve from a monarchy.
Just think about it: we want to bring democracy to Iraq. First they get a president, then a congress, then what next? Ill-behaving fireman forced to wear Strawberry Shortcake boxers over their uniforms?
We didn't bring democracy to Thailand, it found it itself in the eighties. However, I think this is what happens when democracy is bestowed upon a nation not ready to evolve from a monarchy.
Just think about it: we want to bring democracy to Iraq. First they get a president, then a congress, then what next? Ill-behaving fireman forced to wear Strawberry Shortcake boxers over their uniforms?
I Am the Smartest Man On Earth (Without Performance Enhancers)
Last night was an historic night for baseball and its many fans. One of the most illustrious records in the history of our National Pastime, the all-time home run record, was broken when San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds blasted his 756th home run, passing Henry "Hank" Aaron's record set over thirty years ago. Congrats, Barry.
Now, I know very little about sports in general, except for football, so I am far from an expert on baseball. However, our media has periodically been taking breaks from talking about Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan to discuss the legitimacy of Bonds' record, amid long-standing accusations of steroid use as well as the use of other performance-enhancing drugs. This morning, on NBC's Today Show, Bob Costas squared off against a NY Times sportswriter, with Costas blasting Bonds for drug use, claiming , in what I think is one of the stronger arguments in the anti-Bonds division, that you can actually graph out Bonds' batting performance to a point where it's ridiculously obvious where his use of steroids began. The NYT dude countered that even if Bonds used steroids, so too did almost every pitcher, catcher, and other MLB player in that same time frame, alluding to, as it were (quite ironically), a rebalanced playing field.
I simply cannot let something like this pass without throwing in my two cents, because, well, I'm arrogant and I value my opinion that much. But just listen, and I think you'll agree with me.
The two obvious sides to this are bigger than Bonds' record (for it will one day be broken). The issue is whether or not players should be allowed to use steroids and other performance-enhancers. From the start, steroids of this use are illegal, so the obvious answer is no. Moreover, MLB commissioners and hardcore fans will argue that baseball, like any sporting competition, must adhere to the sanctity of the skill of players. This, I believe, is bullshit.
Steroids are illegal, so that obviously staggers the pro-use side. But more importanty, I ask you to actually consider the word "sport" that we use to label the MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. A "sport" is defined as a "recreation, diversion, or pleasant pastime." What makes the MLB (and other pro sporting leagues, for that matter) function? It is not players, or coaches, or umpires/referees, it is FANS. Without fans, there would be no professional sports. There would be empty stadiums, with two sets of athletes out there simply to prove who is better. When you slap a hundred-dollar price on a ticket, you move out of the definiton of "sport" and into the definition of "entertainment", for that is what professional sports are, entertainment.
With arguments over salary caps, complete jackoffs like Alex Rodriguez demnding salaries to rival Fortune 500ers (which is a fucking shame when you consider our nation's teachers generally rope in less than 50k a year), and merchandisers charging eighty dollars for a hoodie, your organization automatically must begin developing rules and regulations to guide athletes.
But, Mr. Sports Fan, you say these regulations are already in place. Really...where? What the fuck has the MLB done to stem the use of steroids? Don't cite the congressional hearings and such, because that is bullshit, if they had actually accomplished something, we wouldn't be listening to this Bonds debate; we'd have gotten a simple "Yes, when he reaches it, it counts" or "No, the fucker jacked himself up enough to bat an elephant three hundred and ninety feet, of course it doesn't count." Instead, we have to listen to every sports expert argue for or against Bonds' achievement. Jose Canseco, for fuck's sake, has even done more than the MLB to make fans aware of steroid use. And what will you say to that? The same argument every baseball fan has made? "Oh, he only did it for the money." Yeah, because A-Rod's out there for the love of the fucking game, right?
I think, honestly, that everything that's happened in the last seven or eight years in professional sports needs to be re-evaluated. Seriously, if I'm paying ten bucks for a hot dog, then the suits at MLB central can get their overpriced-suit-wearing, month-long-Hamptons-vacationing asses into a fucking boardroom and sort this shit out, instead of leaving it to your local sportcaster to decide. It's sickening. Kids play sports because they love them. Adults become pro athletes as a job, and as such, they need to, like all workers, have a set of rules they MUST follow, not a set of "suggestions" that they can adhere to if they feel like it. And it's not their fault. It's the fault of every fucking official of every pro sports organization for not enforcing their rules rigorously enough. Something needs to be done, because if one more sports commentator takes up any more of Matt Lauer's time, I won't know what's going on with Britney Spears.
This is the Word of Dan. Ah, me.
Now, I know very little about sports in general, except for football, so I am far from an expert on baseball. However, our media has periodically been taking breaks from talking about Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan to discuss the legitimacy of Bonds' record, amid long-standing accusations of steroid use as well as the use of other performance-enhancing drugs. This morning, on NBC's Today Show, Bob Costas squared off against a NY Times sportswriter, with Costas blasting Bonds for drug use, claiming , in what I think is one of the stronger arguments in the anti-Bonds division, that you can actually graph out Bonds' batting performance to a point where it's ridiculously obvious where his use of steroids began. The NYT dude countered that even if Bonds used steroids, so too did almost every pitcher, catcher, and other MLB player in that same time frame, alluding to, as it were (quite ironically), a rebalanced playing field.
I simply cannot let something like this pass without throwing in my two cents, because, well, I'm arrogant and I value my opinion that much. But just listen, and I think you'll agree with me.
The two obvious sides to this are bigger than Bonds' record (for it will one day be broken). The issue is whether or not players should be allowed to use steroids and other performance-enhancers. From the start, steroids of this use are illegal, so the obvious answer is no. Moreover, MLB commissioners and hardcore fans will argue that baseball, like any sporting competition, must adhere to the sanctity of the skill of players. This, I believe, is bullshit.
Steroids are illegal, so that obviously staggers the pro-use side. But more importanty, I ask you to actually consider the word "sport" that we use to label the MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. A "sport" is defined as a "recreation, diversion, or pleasant pastime." What makes the MLB (and other pro sporting leagues, for that matter) function? It is not players, or coaches, or umpires/referees, it is FANS. Without fans, there would be no professional sports. There would be empty stadiums, with two sets of athletes out there simply to prove who is better. When you slap a hundred-dollar price on a ticket, you move out of the definiton of "sport" and into the definition of "entertainment", for that is what professional sports are, entertainment.
With arguments over salary caps, complete jackoffs like Alex Rodriguez demnding salaries to rival Fortune 500ers (which is a fucking shame when you consider our nation's teachers generally rope in less than 50k a year), and merchandisers charging eighty dollars for a hoodie, your organization automatically must begin developing rules and regulations to guide athletes.
But, Mr. Sports Fan, you say these regulations are already in place. Really...where? What the fuck has the MLB done to stem the use of steroids? Don't cite the congressional hearings and such, because that is bullshit, if they had actually accomplished something, we wouldn't be listening to this Bonds debate; we'd have gotten a simple "Yes, when he reaches it, it counts" or "No, the fucker jacked himself up enough to bat an elephant three hundred and ninety feet, of course it doesn't count." Instead, we have to listen to every sports expert argue for or against Bonds' achievement. Jose Canseco, for fuck's sake, has even done more than the MLB to make fans aware of steroid use. And what will you say to that? The same argument every baseball fan has made? "Oh, he only did it for the money." Yeah, because A-Rod's out there for the love of the fucking game, right?
I think, honestly, that everything that's happened in the last seven or eight years in professional sports needs to be re-evaluated. Seriously, if I'm paying ten bucks for a hot dog, then the suits at MLB central can get their overpriced-suit-wearing, month-long-Hamptons-vacationing asses into a fucking boardroom and sort this shit out, instead of leaving it to your local sportcaster to decide. It's sickening. Kids play sports because they love them. Adults become pro athletes as a job, and as such, they need to, like all workers, have a set of rules they MUST follow, not a set of "suggestions" that they can adhere to if they feel like it. And it's not their fault. It's the fault of every fucking official of every pro sports organization for not enforcing their rules rigorously enough. Something needs to be done, because if one more sports commentator takes up any more of Matt Lauer's time, I won't know what's going on with Britney Spears.
This is the Word of Dan. Ah, me.
Friday, August 3, 2007
The Welcome Mat
I just want to take a moment to welcome to BMF my good friend Lucid, who graciously has resumed his previous post of Senior Vice President of Completely Useless Information.
In case you're wondering, I'm President, so I'd like to leave you with this little nugget:
Paris Hilton Loses Inheritance
See, life IS fair.
In case you're wondering, I'm President, so I'd like to leave you with this little nugget:
Paris Hilton Loses Inheritance
See, life IS fair.
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