10 mins at the speed of thought

6:12 pm: So I noticed a lot of my previous posts were really didactic and I dont like that it seems as though I am trying to teach people stuff I have an urge to show them something anything but the urge to do so makes me think it unhealthy as though need to have people say wow look how smart he is or something--its like I need to have that so I find stuff that is complicate dor interesting and write about it in a way as to explain it and it really isn't the kind of writing I WANT TO DO OOPS caps lock got on somehow anyway its not the kind of writing I want to do because its boring to write my heart isn't in it it isn't fun but i still feel like I need to do it maybe even to get it off my chest whatever I have on my chest I dont have anything on my chest right now to get off so there's that--so didactic is ok sometimes but I realized recently that most posts recently and even the stuff I think about is really didactic and I dont enjoy writing it but the thing is my brain is really smart and it holds onto stuff and when someobody somewhere shows me they dont know what I am talking about I have an urge to come online and explain it all away i dont know why that is but I am convinced it doesn't help my writing out because it isn't the kind 9of writing I want to do -- so anyway I graduated UCR wahoo and now I see how scary it is to be out in the world because there are so many distractions and fun stuff to do I could play video games or watch movies or read for fun--I havent done that in years--the sky is the limit as they say which is a cliched metaphor of dastardly proportions because the sky is not thelimit we can go beyond the sky now and our limits seem to be as far as our space ships can travel so the real thing to say would be andromeda galaxy is the limit because we havent been there yet but I am sure we will someday anyway whewrre was I---------------- right so today I worked a full day and my legs hurt cause I been standing kneeling crouching leaning for the last 9 hrs and it feels so good to just sit and take the load off my legs---thinik of something to write about write about write about write about write about I got a new phone because my old phone stopped working properly the microphone broke so I could hear the caller clearly but they couldn't hear me so I got a new one and all of it was 100 bucks but as soon as I fill out the rebate it will be 20$ so i should do that and not be a statistic which is silly because no matter which way you go you will always be a statistic pass or fail you know? and that is 10 mins. That felt good to get out

aw shucks peace keeps me awake at night

I was gonna go to bed but I accidentally looked at a picture that said "women say no to war." and I was filled with ire. First of all, does that mean somebody, somewhere has a banner that says, "Women say yes to war." Who does that? Is it a peace organization's best imterest to state the obvious?

OK America/society: many people do not like war. Many people want peace. But my problem with all of that is: 'desires' and 'wants' do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for peace or war. So all you people out there that get shirts made and buttons and stickers to put on your Prius that say "PEACE" you are doing nothing for peace. What you are doing is broadcasting your desires, which is selfish. You don't want to truly have peace, you want people to know how you feel about peace. I could go on and on about this, and maybe I will when I am not so tired. But what do you hope to accomplish with all those stickers?

If only Osama Bin Laden had seen your bumper sticker, maybe than he wouldnt have been such a bad man.

All this time when people threatened America we could have just dropped airplanes full of peace stickers on them rather than bombs.

Peace stickers and rallys and shirts and all that stuff serve one purpose which has nothing to do with peace; and that is it makes you feel good. Because true peacemaking is uncomfortable. And I would argue it is impossible. What I recommend you peace advocates do is get a book called, "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli. For two reasons, one: This is the book that governments operate by (especially ours, but the Russians are better at it). And two it explains why peace cannot work. (and three I guess is because it talks about a lot of really cool stuff that once you learn it you can see our own Government doing it, and you can follow along in the prince to find out why they do what they do.)

And for those of you who wont read the book I will sum up chapter 16 which is 2 pages: Peace cannot work; you can place the most gentle peace loving human in existence in charge, but for a price, a trusted official can put a killer in the same room with him.

One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place.

its getting late. more on this later when my mind is awake, and im not sick.

PEACE Y'ALL!

Squeeze the paw to hear the sweet sounds of cleaning

I have a lot on my mind.

So most importantly my woman was accepted to Western Michigan University, which is 10 mins from her original home in Kalamazoo, MI. She is on her way there now. I just got off the phone with her, she is in Colorado. She decided to drive there, rather than fly because she didn't have enough money to fly to MI with all the stuff she had accumulated in CA for the last five years she lived here with me. So we loaded her car up, she bought a car-top-carrier that I filled with those vacuum-seal bags (which do work, incredibly well in fact) and than I stuffed it full of her teddy bears. She has quite a collection. Her teddy bears, ah yes.

At first, I did not like the idea of sharing my bed or my room with her teddy bear collection. I don't like stuffed animals on my bed. But like any good boy I compromised. ONE BEAR ONLY. Than one added a friend, and so on and so forth. A few people said, "maybe she has some kinda kiddy thing going on in her brain that makes her want to have a lot of toys?" maybe so, but no. The real reason she has so many bears is because she associates memories, places, events, people with each individual bear. (kinda like people do with photos) I found this out later on. So being the awesome boy that I am, I went to the build a bear workshop to build her a bear to give to her while I went away to college at UC Riverside. They have this lil recorder thing you press and speak into and than it saves the sound and later when she presses it, it plays back. GENIUS.

So I thought about something really naughty to say, so that when she squezzed the paw the sweet sounds of my soothing voice would make her weak in the knees. But than I saw the bear maker guy test pressing the sound maker to make sure it worked on each bear under completion. I didn't want my naughty message to be heard by anyone but Loo. So I played it safe and said, "Everything is going to be ok Loo. I'll be back in your arms quickly. Until than hug this bear." When I handed the bear builder guy the noise thing, he slipped it in the paw and filled the bear full of fluff. He didn't test push it. Like he is supposed to. To make sure it sounds the way you want it to. Anyway, I gave the bear to Loo and she was so happy and smiled great big and even cried a little at my thoughtfulness. And than I said:
"Squeze the paw."

And she did. And I heard my voice start strong and than get drowned out by someone vacuuming closeby. You can barely hear me. And she looked at me like, "wtf is this?" and I said, "it's supposed to say: [typed above] but I guess the vacuuming drowned it out." and she said, "aww, thats sweet. At least you tried. Next time look out for vacuumers."

so now, when she is sad, and thinking of me she can squeeze the bears paw and she can listen to the sweet sounds of me being drowned out by a vacuum cleaner.

The point is I gave the perfect thoughtful gift for going away...3 years ago now I guess... but botched the presentation so to speak, which makes it better I think. It's something funny she can rip on me about. "Hey, they're vacuuming over there, you want to go record something for me?" "No, I already recored one near a belt sander." "Sweet."

I remeber once when we were manuvering under the covers (which were a tangeled mess) I kneed the paw and the vacuum sound started up, but muffled under covers. My dad was wishing us goodnight and he stopped and asked, "what the hell is that?" Before Loo could explain I quickly said, "one of loo's bears makes noise when you squeeze the paw." and he said, "Oh" and went to bed. Embarassment avoided.

END.

bienvenido a mi ceso

[inspired by Erin]

At work the other day someone wrote up on the white board: TGIF and I thought in the following order:

1) its thursday
2) TGIF: does that mean Thank God It's Friday or the PC version Thank Goodness It's Friday
3) if it is Thank God Its Friday, which god should be thanked?
4) and if I were to suggest a goddess I would suggest Frigga, whom Friday is named after anyway.

And after the thought came the action. I picked up the dry erase marker and drew a blue line down from the "G" and wrote "which one?"

Nobody got it.
***
A customer who was in love with his BMW was boasting about how well and inexpensive it had been to him to maintain it for the last 80k miles and than he said the following:

"Yep, she purrs like a kitten, runs like clock work, every 20k miles or so something important breaks and it has to go back to the shop."
thought in order:
1) purrs like a kitten is cliche
2) so is runs like clock work
3) breaking seems counter to the metaphor/cliche of running like clock work
4) doesn't clock work mean it just keeps going like a fancy clock or watch?
5) even the fanciest most expensive time keeping devices need maintenance and repairs sometime in their life.

and than I said,

"That's a horrible metaphor."

and than my thoughts were:

1) I shouldn't have said that
2) I shouldn't have said that
3) why did I say that?
4) how do I save the sale?
5) apologize for being a writer, or a college student or having your mind elsewhere

and he said, "Why is that?"

and I said, "Sorry, I have a midterm in Shakespeare tomorrow, im rather mindful of language construction right now. You were saying?"

but he wouldn't relent: "What do you mean, 'that's a horrible metaphor?'"

before I could break down what was going on in my head my mouth opened and let loose:
" if something runs like clock work that is supposed to mean it keeps ticking, it keeps going, over and over. Your BMW breaks catastrophically every 20k miles, while that is timely in itself it does not run like clock work. I understand what you are trying to say, but the metaphor is a bad one. I suggest, set your watch to it, or set your finances to it or something to do with time, rather than a clock. Time is a notion, clock is machinery-- It's not important. Anyway, you were saying?"
***
somebody was talking about basketball or something (i don't pay attention to sports) and they talked about one play that one player did that was godly and amazing.
thoughts:
1) do gods play sports?
2) if a woman did the same thing, would she be goddessly?
3) goddessly isn't a word
4) isnt the last word amazing doing nothing for the sentence? How can it follow godly?
***
end

Earthquake!

There was an earthquake in Ojai May 8. It was a lousy 4.2 (which I think is the Absolute Magnitude scale) earthquake but the epicenter was 2 miles away from my house, but like 19 miles below the surface of the street upon which we live. It really is amazing. The earth rubs tectonic plates together briefly 19 miles below the surface, maybe just for half a second, and we feel it vibrate. I didn't feel it, I was at UCR at the time, but my mom felt it.

There has been a lot of seismic activity recently, and by recently I mean recent by human standards, because geological standards take thousands of years. There was another earthquake last week in Oxnard and one recently in the IE somewhere.

Two things, first: I am kinda bummed I didn't feel any of the earthquakes and neither did Laura (she is from Michigan and is terrified of Earthquakes, never having experienced one herself); I wish I could have felt it because I like feeling insignificant, it helps me gain perspective. All my problems, all my concerns everything I care about could all end if the Earth rubs itself 19 miles below the surface. It is also kinda fun when it doesn't break your stuff.

And second: I have heard a lot of people talk about "The Big One" which is due anyday now. They talk about it as though it will never happen, as though this recent piddly rock rubbing is the maximum the earth can dish out to us surface parasites living in her skin.

Let me tell you about "The Big One." First of all there are two. Yes Two Big Ones. One that truly is THE Big One, the one from the tectonic plate of the pacific that collided with the north american plate towards the coast of california. SanFran is actually on the pacific plate and is moving northward and pressing into the north american plate which is moving southward. They collided and are putting tremendous pressure on one another and have halted their movement, as though they are "hung-up" on one another, hooked you could say.

Imagine these two circular saw blades as the two plates. Now, these two saw blades are slowly spinning in opposite directions, until they touch and the clock-wise ocean wave part hooks into the other saws' counter-clock-wise ocean wave part (imagine these two things touching, can you see where they snag one another?). Eventually this snag will have so much force put to it that it will break, and all that force will be released and those two plates will relieve their tension miles below the surface. That is the Big One, and it will come; more and more energy is being placed on these two plates and something has to give.

The second Big One happens every 77 years or so, and we are a hundred something years since our last one, coming up on round two.

If we are really lucky we will get both the big ones on the same day! And maybe, just maybe we would see the theoretical maximum value on the Absolute Magnitude Scale (the Richter scale depends on an actual Richter scale machine which wasn't very accurate, and has become ubiquitous, like Kleenex for face tissue, and etc. but I digress). That value has never been achieved, and if it was reached it would liquefy rock and all our buildings would sink into the ground, which would be just like water. It would be a real calm and gradual sink.

That, however is highly unlikely. Similar to Absolute Zero (the temperature at which everything, even electricity, freezes, approximately -459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) it has never been achieved, though we get close.

What was I saying?

Oh yeah, The Big One, when it hits, will be the most devastating natural disaster humankind has ever experienced. It will make Katrina seem insignificant, and likewise Californians will be destroyed by it. However any aid from the gov, FEMA, or other countries will be insignificant because there will be no usable roads(!), electricity or running water. Water pipes will break, electrical lines will snap, roads will separate/shift/crumble and be unusable by emergency crews. Which means all aid will need to be airlifted in by helicopter, as no runways will survive. Also broken gas and oil lines would vent to the surface where downed power lines would start fires. (fires and earthquakes work together, historically) A chunk of California, with a huge population density, would be trapped in the rubble of a destroyed city on fire without anyway to put it out. The pressurized water pipes for fire fighting will be broken and drained. California will be begging for aid without a chance of receiving it. Motorcades miles long comprised of emergency motor crews will wait at the edge of broken freeway overpasses and gaping gashes that slash the surface of the earth. There they will wait, wondering, hoping there will be some way to help us out before we die from lack of food and water or any injuries we might have suffered as they look out into the brutal landscape of a once proud city on fire.

*Abstinence Only Sex Education Dies.

I would say RIP Abstinence Only Education, but I cannot deny how I feel about you. I think you were a blight upon our nation and I am glad to see you go. President Obama killed you, and will not be tried by the law --that's how bad you were. You know what else Abstinence Only Education? You just don't work, and you never have, but the last guy protected you, kept you alive, and now he is gone, and you got what you deserve.

For years I heard your pithy slogans, slogans like, "Abstinence is the only 100% sure way to not get pregnant." and a variation replacing pregnant with "AIDS" and "STD's." Well, no shit Abstinence Only Education, did you know that not eating is the only 100% sure way to not get food poisoning too? (Some of you may be asking, "Did he just compare the desire to have sex with the desire to eat, as though they are equally important to the human body?" Or, "Did he just compare pregnancy with food poisoning as though a baby can ruin your day like food posioning?" And some of you may be thinking, "Yeah, he did.")

And even after study after study came to light (though you tried to squelch it) about how You, Abstinence Only Education, actually caused more teen pregnancy and unprotected sex than the normal "flying by the seat of our pants" way. You caused a generation--or two--to view sex with such nerosis that it will be years before we right ourselves and create happy, healthy, and safe sexual relationships with one another. Not to mention all the pedophiles and rapists you raised we still have to catch [and hopefully castrate].

So overall you were pretty shitty to America, Abstinence Only Education, which makes you un-American. Shame on you.

"Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice...shame on Ghost"

Obama administration: hit and miss

The Obama administration lifted the ban on funding for stem cell research. YaY!

The Obama administration put all our nations veterans on the Terrorist Watch List. Boo!

The Obama administration disbanded Guantanamo Bay and outlawed torture. YaY!

The Obama administration overturned a Bush policy for off shore drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. YaY!

The Obama Administration forgot about its transparency pledge and slipped some paper under the radar "on accident." Boo!

Final score: 3/5 = 60% = D-

Break down:

90-100 A
89-80 B
79-70 C
69-60 D
59-50 E

Comments: Study this Mr. President; the final exam is cumulative.