In Which I Become a Crochety Old Man

 Angry Matt, Rants, Seriously?  6 Responses »
Sep 282010
 

 

Every now and then, I wake up on the wrong side of the bed.  I wake up in a bad mood, which only intensifies when I realize that I’ve got to go to work.  Today was one of those days.  Nothing particular had happened.  There was no catastrophic event or hurtful comments.  I was just in a foul mood all day long. 

On days like this, everything pisses me off.  Everything.  And everyone.  On days like that, the only thing that I really want to do is go home, lock the door, and go back to bed in the hopes that I will go to bed and wake up in a better mood tomorrow.

However, as the responsible adult that I am (*snicker*), I can’t just go home and lock myself in my apartment.  I have work to do.  People I have to interact with.  Life that must be lived.  Dammit.

However, that doesn’t stop me from getting ticked off at everyone or everything in the world.  Especially because I can’t even dive into my standard pint of Haagen Dazs’ Forget Your Troubles Ice Cream (Currently: Coconut and Pineapple Ice Cream).  I’m still a cranky old man.  To wit:  below is just a collection of a few of the thoughts that crossed my mind today.

___________________

A public restroom is for one thing, and one thing only.  Going to the restroom.  It’s not for hanging out away from your desk, carrying on long conversations about fantasy football with your “brahs” in the stalls on either side of you.  And it is CERTAINLY not for carrying on phone conversations with your “brahs” while you’re sitting on the pot.  I can promise you that NOTHING you have to say is important enough that you can’t wait until you flush the toilet, and leave the bathroom.  Especially since you INSIST on talking to your “brah” about the girl he banged last night.

***

Brah?  Really?  Because it’s just too much work to make your mouth form the letter “O”? 

***

What is it with salespeople?  Why are they, by nature and personality, the smarmiest people in the world?  I know they are the ones responsible for making companies money, but really, do they all have to act like that?

***

It is NOT. OKAY. that people in the media no longer know the difference between fewer and less.  I actually heard a national anchor say “He has less responsibilities now that…”  Really?  REALLY?  You are the anchor of a national news broadcast and you don’t know the difference? 

***

CharlotteI swear, if I walk into one more cobweb I’m going to lose it.  I don’t know what the deal is with the spiders this year, but it’s like they’re amassing a giant army in preparation for overtaking the earth and enslaving all humanity. 

Were it within my power, I would wipe all spiders off the face of the earth.  I don’t care how many bugs they eat, they can’t compete with DDT.

***

Why is it that nobody understand how to write “funny” anymore without being crass or making the audience acutely uncomfortable.  Crude humor isn’t that funny…it’s just easy and cheap.  And uncomfortable humor isn’t funny.  It’s uncomfortable.  And if I wanted to be uncomfortable, I’d go back to trying to date women again.  (A perfect example of how uncomfortable does not equal funny.)

***

I LOATHE it when people use the adjective “gay” as an insult.  I have a couple of new neighbors who just moved in, and whose brother I happened to go to school with.  Their brother is gay.  Yet, even still, I hear one of my two neighbors using the word “gay” as an insult all. the. time.  Like being gay is the worst thing you can be.  He even said to one of his friends, “Shutup dude, you’re so gay.  If you were any gayer, you’d be (fill in the name of brother here.)”  Really?  Jake or Megan, if I ever hear you using that adjective to classify something as bad, you’re officially off the Christmas gift list.  Which sucks for you, because I give good gifts.

***

I am so sick and tired of the philosophy, “Well, we don’t really have time to do this the right way, so we’ll just do it quickly, and fix it later.”  Well, that would be GREAT if you ever did fix it later, but you never do, so instead of doing what I should be doing, I end up spending all of my time being the digital equivalent of a janitor. 

***

I am so overwhelmingly sick and tired of a country and a media being run by a bunch of extremists.  I don’t want the tea party to destroy my country any more than I want the socialists to.  But because we can’t seem to figure out how to entice sensible, moderate people into politics, let alone elect them, we’re going to be stuck with the presidential tickets in 2012 of Palin-Beck and Obama-Marx.

***

WHERE THE HELL IS ALL OF MY MONEY?  WHERE DOES IT GO?  I WANT IT BACK?

***

The grass outside my apartment turns into a giant mud bog the instant it starts to rain.  Which means it’s impossible for me to keep my laminate flooring even remotely clean.  How hard is it to landscape a public area so it’s not a marsh.  The pioneers did it all the time in the midwest.  Sure, they caught and died from malaria, but so what?  If they could do it with nothing more than some oxen and a pickaxe, I think we could manage to dig up the marsh, put down a drainage base, and manage to keep the ground from turning to muck for 9 months out of the year.

***

If you have a dog, and you don’t pick up after your dog…FOR SHAME.  I pick up my dog’s poop every. single. time.  There are even dispensers with bags for pickup posted all over the complex.  (They’re called poopy pouches.  *snicker*.)  If your dog pops a squat, go get a bag and pick up after it.  If you didn’t want the responsibility, you shouldn’t have gotten a dog.  And the next time I get dog crap in my shoes because you didn’t clean up after your ill-behaved, mean, untrained puppy who barks all day long and growls at everything that moves, I’m going to let you pay for a new pair of shoes.

***

It’s too early for summer to be gone.

***

Really, Glee?  A Britney Spears episode?  These themed episodes are always so lame, and the dialogue is atrocious.  And really, who teaches glee club like that?  No glee club teacher gives the students an assignment to learn a song on a subject, nor would any glee club teacher allow his or her students to get up and start singing a song any time they wanted to express an emotion that ought to be expressed in private.  If I were teaching a glee club (again), and one of my students interrupted me even before I got started talking and said, “Mr. Armstrong…I have a song that I’ve prepared for the class,” and then got up and started to sing a torch song to their boyfriend or girlfriend (because high school romances ALWAYS last forever, and are thus deserving of a tribute in song), I would tell the student to be quiet and sit down.  No wonder they lost regionals.  If all they do is learn a new song every week on some stupid, made up topic that some hack TV writers need to string together a bunch of songs that don’t have anything to do with anything, or to introduce some has-been pop act whose songs aren’t that good in the first place (*cough*Ga Ga*cough*), how are they ever going to get good enough at their actual songs to compete?

***

And Will Schuester, I know you’re hot and all, but MOST high school teachers wouldn’t be caught dead performing a pump and thrust Britney Spears numbers with their *ahem* high school students.  If they were, they’ve be fired for inappropriate behavior.  Gross.

______________________________________________

I wish I could say that I feel better now, but all I’ve done it get myself worked up.  I need to go play the piano, or kill some spiders, or drive to McDonalds or something. 

I really hope tomorrow doesn’t make me so stabby.

 Posted by at 8:54 pm

I Peed a Little

 Angry Matt, Funny, Rants  1 Response »
Sep 212010
 

I hate spiders.  It is well documented.

It’s starting to get colder outside, which means that my nemeses are now attempting to make incursions into my abode.  This. Is. Not. Okay.  I don’t want their kind anywhere near me. 

Anyway, a friend posted this on Facebook today, and I laughed so hard I didn’t know whether to crap my pants or puke.  Courtesy of The Oatmeal.

image

Because, seriously, what’s with all the cobwebs outside right now?  Are they trying to get their last meal? 

I really, REALLY hate spiders.

 Posted by at 10:49 pm

Tragedy Vs. Outrage

 Angry Matt, Being Existential, Philosophizing, Rants  No Responses »
Sep 112010
 

As you are certainly aware, today is the 9th anniversary of that fateful day in September on which the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York fell, the pentagon was attacked, and United Flight 93 crashed in the middle of a field because its passengers were willing to sacrifice themselves to save the lives of others. It was a horrible event, to be certain.  In the nine years since, however, collective America seems to have learned the wrong lessons from that fateful day on which so many people lost their lives.  

This morning, when I awoke, I picked up my iPad as I do every morning, and scrolled through the Facebook status updates and Tweets that had been posted since I had gone to bed the night before.  Among them, I found this one, posted by one of my Facebook friends:

This is such an outrage! Never forget and never lose passion for those who've lost life, loved ones, and security. On this date America was attacked by hate. Let the courage from victims, rescue teams, and response efforts inspire us. Never forget!

With all due respect to my friend, this statement bothered me greatly.  What happened on September 11th was a tragedy, without question.  That thousands and thousands of people should lose their lives due to the hate of a few religious fanatics is tragic.  And horribly sad.  But an outrage?

The final, official death toll of the September 11th attacks was 2,996, and that includes the 19 hijackers.  Fewer than 3000 people.  Granted, 3000 people is a lot of people, and the effects of those lost lives was felt by exponentially more.  Compare that, however, with the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.  In that genocide it is estimated that 800,000 people died.  In one year, in one small African nation, 267 times more people than died in the September 11th attacks were ruthlessly slaughtered because they belonged to the wrong tribe.

But even still, is the Rwandan Massacre an outrage?  Or is it a tragedy of even more epic proportions?

In the America that has evolved in the last near-decade, our country appears to have forgotten that outrages and tragedies are not the same thing.  Far from being a mere semantic argument, the emotions that feed and support a tragedy are far different than the ones that supports an outrage.  A tragedy encompasses heartbreak and sadness, support and honor.  An outrage is dressed in garments of hate, anger, and vengeance.  One leads to us come together, knit ties of love and support, and to honor those who made massive personal sacrifices in order to help others in the midst of the devastation.  The other leads us to make harsh actions, lash out, judge others unfairly and incorrectly, and seek a vengeance that we can not and will not ever be able to truly achieve.  In the process we end up causing even more harm to ourselves than was caused to us by the "outrage" to begin with.

Shortly after the September 11th attacks, the United states opened its "War on Terror" by attacking Iraq.  Since the start of that war on March 19th, 2003, the official death count of that war is 31,929 American lives.  (Some unofficial counts are over three times higher)  We have sent nearly 32,000 American soldiers and civilians to their deaths to fight a war against an ideal.  A war which we have not and can not win.  A war which has, in the long run, only damaged our standing in the world, provided terrorists with recruiting ammunition, and cost us more than 10 times the number of lives that we originally started this war over. 

But the true outrage of September 11th isn't that it happened, but rather, what we as Americans have allowed ourselves to become because it happened.  We have become a nation of hate.  We have allowed the loud-mouthed bigots and ignoramuses to set the tenor of the national debate in this country for far too long.  We are a country where the freedom of speech is one of the most cherished of virtues and as a result, we have seen how the outrage of September 11th has turned an entire generation of Americans into narrow-minded, ignorant, mean-spirited hate mongers, intent on blaming an entire religion for the actions of a few members.  We have seen a megalomaniacal preacher threaten to blaspheme the holy scriptures of that religion in order to prove some point that even he isn't capable of articulating.  We have seen throngs of people trying to block the construction of a Islamic community center near the site of the September 11th tragedy even though you can't even see the site from ground zero.

As a nation, we have glossed over the tragedy of September 11th, and moved immediately into the outrage of the happening.  We have festered and stewed over it for nearly a decade.  We have sent tens of thousands of our young men and women to die over our desire for revenge.  And we have done absolutely nothing toward preventing such a thing from ever happening again.  We were attacked by hate, which turned us to hate, and caused us to attack in hate, which turns them to hate even more, and the cycle is endless. 

At some point in this cycle, one side or another will need to be willing to let go of the hate and outrage of our endless spiral of violence and vengeance, or we will eventually destroy each other.  America is supposed to be the land of the free, a land built on a higher ideal and with a greater purpose.  Perhaps it is we, as Americans, who should take the first step toward breaking this cycle with something other than bigotry, hate, and violence. 

The tragedy of September 11th is heart-rending.  And it will continue to be so.  But as we near the decade mark from that loss of life, let us look at the past events of that horrific day not as a fuel for our outrage, but as a reminder that we as a nation need to hold ourselves to a higher standard of love, acceptance, and peace.  We allowed the attacks of September 11th to lower our great nation to the same level as the terrorists.  It's time to pick ourselves up out of the dirt, leave the cycle of outrage behind, and try to build a world where tragedy and outrage are not the same things.  Only then will we win over our enemies, and only then may we ever see a glimmer of peace.  And if we fail in that, we will fail to find peace.

And that would be a real outrage.

 Posted by at 8:19 pm

Mock (yeah) Ing (yeah) Jay (yeah) Yeah (yeah)

 Angry Matt, Books, Media, Rants, Seriously?  No Responses »
Aug 232010
 

So, as I begin to write this blog post, it’s 10:52 PM on a Monday night, and I’m just biding my time until midnight.  Why, you may ask?  That’s because, at midnight, the final book in Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games trilogy comes out, and I have pre-ordered it for delivery on my Kindle.  I want to get an hour or two of reading in tonight if I am able.

I’ve not been this excited about the release of a book since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out back in 2007.  The Hunger Games ranks right up there in my list of favorites along with Harry Potter and the Fablehaven series.

While I’m waiting, I’m doing laundry, doing dishes, and listening to the audiobook of You Suck by Christopher Moore…a very funny novel that is basically what Twilight would have been if it were written by a sarcastic sex-crazed frat boy instead of a sexually frustrated suburban housewife with attachment issues.  (In all honesty, Stephenie Meyers is a really nice person, and pretty cool in real life, but sometimes, reading the Twilight saga is enough to make me sprout breasts.)

And I’m blogging.  Because, seriously, if you’re lame enough to be waiting up until Midnight for a BOOK, then you might as well cement your lameness by writing a blog post about the fact that you’re waiting up until Midnight for a book.

I thought about writing an epic rant about the jackbags who are trying to stop the building of an Islamic cultural center near ground zero, but I feel like this topic has been played out in the media far too much.  I won’t write a full-blown rant, but I would like to say a few things.

  • If you are one of the mindless masses campaigning against the building of an Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero, you should be ASHAMED of yourself.  Ashamed. 
  • If you’re a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and you’re campaigning against the building of an Islamic cultural center near ground zero, you should be ashamed of yourself, and then you better go repent.  LEST member of the LDS church forget, less than 40 years ago, it was still officially legal to kill a Mormon in the state of Missouri.  If you’ve been in the church for any amount of time, then you know what can happen when we start being prejudiced based on religion.  And for a group of people who make up less than 2% of the population of the United States,  you should be fighting for these Muslim’s rights as though they were your own…because one they were your own rights that needed fighting for, and almost certainly they will be again. 
  • Islam does not equal terrorism.  Saying that an Islamic center shouldn’t be built next to Ground Zero is like saying that Marriage should be made illegal in Utah and Arizona because there are a few polygamists living there. 
  • Seriously?  SERIOUSLY?  With all of the problems going on in the world, THIS is what we’re going to focus on?  Whether a group of Muslims can take an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory building and turn it into a community and cultural center two blocks away from the site of the world training which, by the way, you can’t even SEE from ground zero, is really the MOST important thing we can be dealing with?  How about working on joblessness, or homelessness, or lambasting Dr. Laura for saying the N-Word on the radio.

Okay.  I’m stopping now.  Seriously, though, if another person sends me an invite on Facebook to join another Anti-Muslim group, I might have to look up their address and firebomb their house.  Oh wait.  Then they’ll probably start discriminating against gay Mormons.  Oh.  Wait.  They already do that.  Nevermind.

*Rant Mode Off*

Eliza?  Where the hell are my slippers?

Anyway, um, Mockingjay.  Can’t wait.  I will probably be worthless at work tomorrow.  Which, let’s be honest, isn’t a huge step from how I am most of the time.  This new job has me feeling more than a little inadequate…something that I’m not used to feeling at work.  In my personal life and human relationships, yes.  But not at work.

Whew.  This blog post got all angsty all of a sudden.  I think I need to go sit in a hot bath with a cold popsicle.  (And no, that’s not a euphemism for anything.  You’ve got such a dirty mind.)

To all of you Hunger Games fans, here’s to a fantastic Mockingjay Day!

 Posted by at 10:15 pm

Ask, and Ye Shall Receive: or How I Learned to Hate the Postal Service

 Angry Matt, Rants  2 Responses »
Jul 142010
 

So yesterday, I was complaining (as I am wont to do) about the fact that I didn't have anything about which I could blog.  Luckily, all three of my blog readers chimed in and offered suggestions for future posts, which I appreciate greatly, and plan to use soon..  However, I managed to have a real life experience that rankled enough that I thought it deserved its own blog rant.

I despite the US Postal Service.

The USPS is a worthless, money-wasting, bloated, inefficient, run down, obsolete, stupid pile of rat droppings.  The people who manage the postal service are scum sucking scab pickers with a collective intelligence that isn't capable of figuring out how to escape from a Chinese finger trap.  They're loathsome slug-eating dirtbags.  And doesn't even begin to describe my mail lady.

I suppose I should start at the beginning. 

There really is only one word in the English language to describe the mail carrier for my apartment complex:  Bitch.  She's unpleasant, stand-offish, and mean.  She's lazy and ill-tempered.  She won't even acknowledge a "hello" or a "good afternoon."  She is 100% without any compassion at all.  She's just a stone cold bitch.

I first started having problems with this woman when I moved in three years ago and subscribed to Netflix.  I ordered my three DVDs, and I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And they never came.  So I reported the missing DVDs to Netflix, and they sent them out again.  And they never came.  Eventually, about three weeks later, the original batch of DVDs got returned to Netflix saying that my address was incorrect.  So, I got online, and my address was 100% correct.  In order to smooth over what I'm sure was just a minor understanding, I ran into my mail lady one day while I was out walking the dog, and I asked her if she knew anything.

Y'all, she looked at me with a death glare and said, "I had to send them back because the address was too long and it didn't fit in the window." 

"I'm sure," I said, "it's a long address.  But, you can still read the apartment number.  It's just printed on the red part of the envelope, not the white part."

"You need to shorten the address."

"And," I stated, "My name is printed on a label inside my mailbox so you know who is living in the apartment.  There's only ONE Matt Armstrong in the complex."

"You need to shorten the address."

"Not to mention," I continued, "that we have an office complex where the staff can look up the apartment number of anyone in the complex…even though you already have my name inside my mailbox AND you could still read the number if you looked at it closely."

"You need to shorten the address."

And that was that.  In essence, the Mail Nazi declared that she wasn't going to

Now, granted.  I have a very long street address.  Of all of the places I've ever lived, it's the longest address I've ever seen. 

#### W LAKE SAMMAMISH PKWY NE APT #####

That is my street address.  (Just replace the #s with actual numbers, and you'd have my address).  It's very long.  It's also a treat to try to spell over the phone when you need to order something or confirm your billing address.  It's especially fun for your mom to scream over the phone to your nearly-deaf grandmother who wants to send you a birthday card with a huge honking check in it, but who is also so paranoid (and cheap)that she refuses to go to the doctor to get a hearing aid.

Anyway.

This address has been a source of annoyance for me since I moved into this complex.  I love the complex.  Most companies that send things through the mail require that your address be standardized to the US Postal Service's (GRRRRR) official address format.  This is required because, if you standardize addresses and presort your mailings, you actually get a much cheaper postage rate.  It also helps to ensure that the service's automatic mail sorting systems can read and recognize the address.  The problem is that, if you try to type in my full address, most web forms will choke.  Most web forms have a character length limitation that  won't even allow me to enter my full address, even though it also requires that, because of the standardization, said address should be 100% correct.  Often, I have to actually call the company and have them manually override the system and put in my full address because otherwise I can't pay my bills, order things online, etc.

Netflix is one of those companies that, in order to save on what must be astronomical postage costs, they standardize addresses.  So, I went online, and updated my address, shortening LAKE SAMMAMISH PKWY to LK. SAMM. PKWY as I was instructed by the Mail Gestapo.  Netflix's system standardized it back to normal.  So then I tried moving my apartment number to Line #2.  Netflix's system standardized it and moved it back to the first line.  Finally, I had to call Netflix and have them manually adjust it to meet the needs of the Postal SS.  And eventually my DVDs started coming through…about 80% of the time.  Sometimes they just don't show up for three or four weeks, and then end up back at Netflix.  (Side note: It only takes them 1-2 days to get to me.  Why does it take them 4 weeks to get back to Netflix?)

That is, until Netflix makes some update to its customer address system, and in response to complaints from the postal service, re-standardizes all address and again my DVDs to stop showing up.

It's not only Netflix that causes problems.  I've had credit card statements never show up or get returned to the card company because of the standardized address problem.  When a package arrives, the postal lady leaves the package in the office, but NEVER puts a slip of paper in my mailbox alerting me that a package has arrived.  So the only way I know it has been delivered is to keep bugging the office staff every day until it comes, or just wait until it's been sitting in the office for two weeks and the office staff calls me, angrily demanding that I come and get my package or they're going to throw it away.

And it's not just me.  I've spoken with all my neighbors, and we've all been having problems with Mary, Queen of Stamps.  Several have complained to the Postmaster for Redmond.  And the response?  I kid you not:  "Well, you just need to shorten your address."

Okay, I have a few things to say about that.

  1. THIS IS MY ADDRESS.  If you've got a problem with how long it is, maybe you shouldn't have let them name the street WEST LAKE SAMMAMALAMADINGDONG PARKWAY to begin with.
  2. DO YOUR D(#$ JOB.  You were hired to deliver my mail.  You have several tools at your disposal.  Just do your job and deliver my mail…even if that means to have to put forth a little effort to do it.
  3. Really?  REALLY?
  4. PULL THE STICK OUT.  I can understand if you're having a bad day.  Or even a bad week.  But if you're so miserable that you can be a dour-faced pisspot of a mail carrier for three years straight, you either need to get on some meds or get a new job.  Because you're starting to tick me off royal.
  5. YOU NEED TO MAKE UP YOUR MIND.  Either I can shorten my address or I can't.  Either I have to standardize my address or I don't.  If I have to use a standardized address, and that address is too long, then you, as the postal carrier, don't get to decide whether or not you're going to deliver my mail based on the length of said address.  My address is accurate, it's legible (although requiring a little effort), and it has been standardized to YOUR STUPID SYSTEM!  Also, SEE RULE #2.

The United States Postal Service is dying an ignominious death.  When I was born, the price for a first-class stamp was 15¢.  Now, 32 years later, it has increased by 293%, and next year it will be 306%.  That has roughly kept pace with inflation, which is fine, but what isn't fine is that the Postal Service is now operating at HUGE losses.  The postal service estimates that, in the next 10 years, they could amass a deficit of, get this, $283 BILLION dollars.

Again, it's a pseudo-governmental agency, so that's not a huge surprise, since the government isn't any more capable of living within its means than is 4/5ths of the US population (including myself.)  But what "really frosts my cookies" (name that quote) is the fact that the USPS is running at such a HUGE deficit, but can't even provide a basic level of service. 

If I ship a package via Priority Mail, it's supposed to arrive in 2-3 days.  It costs more than UPS.  It doesn't include any insurance, like UPS.  I have to pay extra for tracking, which UPS includes in the price.  And worst of all, the package NEVER takes 2-3 days.  I shipped one package last year via Priority Mail, and it took 8 days to get there.  EIGHT DAYS.  The only reason I used USPS is because I had to go to the library, and the Post Office was across the street.  Otherwise, I would have gone to UPS.

Now, in addition to trying to jack up the price of stamps to something like 55¢ next year, the UPSP is trying to end mail delivery on Saturday because it's so expensive.  So, let me get this straight.  You're losing money hand over fist, people are moving all of their previously mail-related business to the Internet or your competitors, You're failing to meet even the most basic of your promised service goals, and you're going to hold on the customers by REDUCING services and increasing costs?  Only in America.  It's exactly the kind of hubris that toppled IBM & General Motors, that is currently in the process of toppling Microsoft, and has just barely started to topple Apple.

The Postal Service Creed states–and this is from their own television commercials, mind you–"We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever."

Well, where in that creed does it state, "Unless I'm in a bad mood, or the address is too long, or I don't want to be bothered going to the office to have them look up your apartment number."  If it's dumping snow outside, I'd just a soon my mail carrier didn't come.  Stay home and be safe.  But, dammit, if you're going to go out on your rounds, just deliver the mail.  IT'S. YOUR. JOB.

Look.  I'm a guy who loves his technology.  I live on my computer.  I pay my bills online.  But I like actually getting a bill in the mail as a reminder to pay.  I LOVE getting birthday cards (especially when they have a check in them.)  I freak out over Christmas Cards and hang all of them on the inside of my front door for decorations.  I like getting packages from my parents with candy and gift cards (and usually some food storage items, because, hey!  Why not?)  I run a small business that occasionally ships products out to customers.  But it's getting less and less likely that I'll ever use the United States Postal service to do ANY of these things.  Why would I?  I could do it faster, more cheaply, and with far better tracking and security than I could do with USPS. 

And to my mail lady:  Look.  I don't know what your problem is, but it's about time you pulled the stick out.  I'm not normally the kind of person who complains to managers, but if you don't start delivering my mail…or at least try to make a token effort, I'll make an exception.  In fact, I'm sure I could spearhead a letter-writing campaign with just my apartment complex and the other complexes on my street .  And just to spite you, I'll deliver them in person at the post office, thus negating the need to use a stamp.  I'd hate to see anyone lose their job for being a mean-spirited lazy ass, but…wait a minute. 

No I wouldn't.  It would be awesome.

 Posted by at 10:17 pm

So, I Got Contacts…again.

 Health, Rants, Videos  No Responses »
Jun 152010
 

I’ve had bad eyes for a long time.  I got my first pair of glasses when I was in 6th grade.  (I VERY mistakenly thought that getting glasses was cool, and I was proud of them.  I have since learned.) 

About the time I hit my sophomore year, I decided I was tired of glasses and I wanted to try contacts.  So, we went to NuVision in Albion, and I got my very first pair of contact lenses.  It was hate at first sight.

See, I’ve got this thing about my eyes.  Call me crazy, but the thought of purposely sticking my fingers into my eyes twice a day just doesn’t do it for me.  I can’t even put in eye drops.  And when I get that stupid glaucoma test where they shoot a puff of air into my eye…forget about it.  To the casual observer, it looks like I’m being tased.  In my eyeball.  By Satan. 

On top of that, I’ve got hooded eyelids, which will probably get worse with time.  Some members of my family have even had to have corrective cosmetic surgery because their hooded eyelids were beginning to interfere with their vision. 

All of this adds up to one major thing: I HATE contacts.  I hate putting them in.  I hate the itchiness in my eyes when I wear them.  I hate it when they fold in half, roll back behind my eyeball, and cause my eyes to water so badly that I appear to be watching Elijah Wood in The War when he finds out his father is dead.

Eventually, I just stopped wearing them.  Glasses were so much easier to deal with, and, since my eyebrows are invisible, they gave some definition to my face.  I eventually discovered that there was a specific shape of glasses that I should wear that would complement the shape of my (giant) head, and eventually, I grew to like the way that glasses looked on me.

When I was mentally ill performing, contacts became a necessity again.  I could either deal with the contacts or I could be blind onstage…so contacts it was.  I bought my last pair of contacts just before starting performances of Crazy for You, which turned out to be my very last theatrical performance.  After that, there just wasn’t much need for contacts. 

I even went so far as to purchase prescription sunglasses.  Normally, I would wear my contacts on road trips and when I went to amusement parks and the like, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to wear sunglasses.  But once I got my prescription sunglasses, that became a non-issue as well.

Well, this last weekend, I finally broke down and decided to give contact lenses another go.  I went to the optometrist’s office, got assaulted in the eye by the air compressor of doom, and walked out with a prescription for contact lenses.  And I’ve had a headache ever since.  Apparently (I didn’t know this) when you first get contacts, you’re only supposed to wear them for a few hours a day until you get used to them.  The first day, I wore them for four hours.  The next day, I wore them for 10.  And now my eyes are so tired I can’t focus them anymore.  I wore them another 10 hours today, and it was all I could do not to snap, and go off like Elvadine in The War when she tells Miss Strapford what’s what.

(I don’t know why I’ve got The War on my mind, but now I need to go watch it again.)

Anyway, suffice it to say, right now, "I’s can’t even see good, so I’m prolly not gunna graduate this year neither."  It’s hard enough spending your whole day under flickering fluorescent lights in front of two computer screens.  But add evil contact lenses on to that, and I’ve got a headache this big, and it’s got @#$% you @#$%ing @#$%ers written all over it.

And why might you ask, have I decided to torture myself with this miserable horrendousness.  Is it masochism?  Preparations for a suicide bombing attack?  Mormon guilt?  No.  I’m doing this all for art.  On Friday, I’m going to see Toy Story 3 at the nicest theater in the area.  And because it’s only playing in 3D, I will need to wear 3D glasses.  And Hell will sprout Otter Pops before I sit through that movie with glasses over my glasses.  A’int Gunna Happen.  Also, my glasses are at the point of falling apart, and it was either this or buy new glasses, and the contacts were cheaper. 

So, if I seem crabby (or, more accurately, crabbier than usual) for the next couple of days, it’s probably because I’ve got a headache going behind my eyeballs so severe that it’s making my teeth hurt. 

Seems that no matter what I do, I still have to suffer for art.

 Posted by at 10:00 pm

The Death of Moderation

 Rants  8 Responses »
Jun 092010
 

I've been mulling over a topic recently that has been on my mind a great deal, trying to figure out how best to formulate a cogent blog post on my random and disparate thoughts when, out of the blue, a comment was place on an old blog post of well over a year ago that managed to solidify my thoughts and proved my yet-unformed thesis.  (Let's not get into arguing about how specious that reasoning is, please.  Or how long of a run-on sentence that was. I'm aware.  Just go with me on this.)

The original post, which can be found here, was all about a bumper sticker I had seen on a car, which stated, "Freedom to Smoke Without Harassment."  I went on to pontificate concerning the absolute idiocy of what I considered to be the only two meanings that could be derived from that bumper sticker.  One year and two months later, a "gentleman" by the name of "Yourmom" posted the following comment on the blog post:

Your rant shows just how stupid and intolerant you are of others. Are you "allergic" to blacks and hispanics too? I would hate to know you, or god forbid be related to you. People that don't allow others to have a point of view other than their own are a cancer on this planet. Have fun worshipping hitler,and if you don't believe in MY FREEDOM TO SMOKE, do us all a favor and die from second hand smoke.

Charming, right?  I thought so. 

Yourmom, while obviously unable to read and comprehend even the most simply written of arguments, still managed to prove one major point: Moderation is Dead.  I didn't want someone forcing me to inhale second hand smoke, and therefore I worship Hitler and deserve to die of second hand smoke myself.  That makes sense.

The idea of calm, moderated, and reasoned thoughts and actions has become completely foreign to most people.  We live in a world where only the most extreme views are featured on television or above the fold on a newspaper's front page.  I even fall victim to the extremism myself sometimes, when I disagree with an opinion or practice. 

Extremism is everywhere. The most atrocious behavior leads to the highest ranked television programs.  Politicos are no longer able or willing to compromise or reach agreements.  Food portions have ballooned out of control.  Credit card debt has taken over the economy.  Political correctness has run out of control, checked only by the most extreme hatred and prejudice.

Moderation is dead.

Take, for example, the current political climate and our sitting President.  According to the media, Barack Obama is either the death knell of the American Dream or he is Jesus 2.0.  He either wants to turn the United States into a Communist country or he will single-handedly fix the economy, provide us with perfect health care, legalize gay marriage, solve the housing crisis, and cause the sun to rise each day and the stars to shine each night.

Even those who are supposed to take a moderate or neutral stance are finding themselves unable to do so.  Helen Thomas, the long-time White House correspondent, was a member of the media, responsible for reporting on our governmental happenings, should have been a bastion of objectivity.  Yet, she couldn't help but spewing an extreme viewpoint on Israel.  Rand Paul, self-professed Libertarian, recently discussed repealing the Civil Rights Act on the Rachel Maddow show (who, in all honesty, isn't the most moderate of people, either.)

Or take, for example, the media itself.  On one hand, you have asshats like Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck, who equate Obama to Hitler (seriously…do these people understand what the definition of Fascism is?)  On the other, you've got The Bachelorette, The Real Housewives of Orange County, or anything by Seth McFarlane, who are more interested in shocking and pushing the boundaries of decency than they are in entertaining.  People have forgotten that comedy is supposed to be funny, not just offensive.

The left blames the right for being bigoted, closed-minded, prejudiced, and ignorant, while the right blames the left for being unrealistic, dangerous, aimless, and deluded.  Neither side realizes that, in acting and saying these things, they are themselves being exactly what they hate their "opponents" for being.  Each side is acting out the very stereotypes they project on the other side.

And the food world is no different.  Kentucky Fried Chicken recently released a "sandwich" called the Double Down, a pile of deep-fried putrescence in which the sandwich consists of two slices of cheese, three slices of bacon, and special sauce sandwiched between two fried chicken breasts.  Even the "normal" fast food has gotten out of control, with serving sizes reaching jaw-dropping proportions. 

Yet, on the other hand, are the whole foods army who pontificate the importance of eating only locally grown, organic food, no matter how inconvenient or how much it costs.  They aren't willing to rest until everyone and everything is a level 5 vegan (they won't eat anything that casts a shadow.) (Name that quote.) 

This constant extremism has gotten to the point where we are losing site of the important things in our lives.  How is it that we have gotten to a point where it is okay to threaten to kill another human being because they signed a piece of paper requiring health care?  Where it is okay to fly a plane full of people and fuel into a skyscraper because you disagree with the country's ideals?  How is it Obama's fault that the BP oil rig in the gulf exploded?  Yet sure enough, I have heard appeals for Obama's resignation over the way this was handled.  (And let's not even get into the whole hoopla over his citizenship status). 

The main problem lies with the fact that, as both the people and the media in this country and abroad continue to get more extreme, those of us who stand firmly in the middle and try our best to come to some compromise that will benefit everyone find ourselves increasingly unable to be heard.  When airtime is allotted only to the loudest and most ludicrous points of view, it is insanely difficult for the middle of the road to win any believers in the moderate way.

Those on the extremes can't seem to understand that you can disagree with them while not necessarily espousing their opposition's point of view.  They don't understand that sometimes, you just don't care that much.  And most importantly, they don't realize how much more effective they would be if they could stop pushing all the hellfire and damnation buttons at their disposal and try to create real discussion.

Actually, that's not true.  They understand.  And really, we have nobody to blame but ourselves.  Glen Beck wouldn't have a television show on the air today if he didn't have a rabid audience.  Bill Maher wouldn't be a bastion of late-night self-righteousness if there weren't a world of people willing to play along with his political masterbation (i.e., he's only pleasuring himself).

I think it's about time that those of us who stand in the middle need to raise our voices in a sort of Extreme Moderation.  I'm tired of being presented with an endless line of politicians who pander to the extreme left or extreme right.  I'm tired of the television shows that ridicule me or my personal beliefs.  I'm sick of pundits who use Hitler as their go-to comparison whenever they disagree with something.  I'm tired of a world where the only way you can be heard is to be the biggest crackpot, the meanest spirit, or the most wildly offensive is the one whose opinions get the most air time.

So moderates of the world, it's time that we stand up and make ourselves heard.  Spout your moderation at the top of your lungs.  Make sure everyone hears it.  Do you best to make spread your message of moderation to the world.  Let's see if we can't reign in the extremists on both side.  I'm tired of Black Holes and Blinding Snowstorms.  I'm ready for a few shades of grey.

Oh, and to the douchebag who told me to go back to worshipping Hitler…really?  Really?  Grow up.

MODERATES UNITE!

 Posted by at 7:33 pm

Auto-play Video Ads = Automatic Ban Hammer

 Rants  11 Responses »
Mar 252010
 

Auto-Play = Auto-Ban

I have an acquaintance who is a very funny and talented film reviewer and columnist writing for a variety of different papers and websites, and who appears regularly on radio shows and podcasts to talk about film. I’ve been following him since I was in college, and enjoy his writing immensely. Today, he posted another column in his “Eric’s Bad Movies” series, where he purposely watches horrid movies and then reviews them in a funny, informal fashion. They’re great columns and remind me of the bad movie nights I used to have with my friends in high school.

Film.com however, the site that he writes for, has decided that they don’t care at all about the visitors that come to their site and have started putting video ads all over the side bars of the pages. These ads launch automatically on page load, and begin playing–with full audio. Usually, these ads are hidden 2/3rds of the way down the page, are impossible to find, and sometimes, they can’t even be turned off.

I find this completely unacceptable.

We live in a world where we are constantly assaulted by advertising.  It’s in our television programs, along our highways, in our reading material, on our websites, in our email inboxes, in our regular mail boxes, on the radio, in our workplaces, in every store, and even stitched into our clothing.  One of the richest and most powerful companies in the world has exploded onto the scene based entirely upon the strength of its advertising platform.  (That company would be Google for those keeping track.)  Advertisements are everywhere.  I get that.  But advertising has gotten out of control.  Companies have taken the ad from the level of nuisance to an entirely new level of intrusion and I, for one, am fed up. 

Take, for instance, commercials at the movie theater.  I pay $12 to buy a movie ticket to a film that, statistically speaking, is probably going to be mediocre–if not downright awful.  I spend $7 for a tub of popcorn which I could make at home for about $0.50.  I buy a small soda which costs me $5 and which probably only cost the theatre about $0.15.  And despite the fact that I’ve just spent $24 for a single person to see a first-run movie, I still have to watch advertisements.  In the best-case scenario, the theater just displays Coca-cola sponsored slides full of trivia so, well, trivial that a mentally challenged sea slug could figure them out.  In many theaters, the theater will display triviads for 20 minutes and will then dim the lights and play 20 minutes of commercials.  THEN they’ll get to the trailers.  By the time the movie has started, it’s often 30-40 minutes past the start time of the film as advertised by the theater.  In my world, time is a very valuable commodity, and I should be reimbursed for my time forced to watch these ads, not charged for it.

Or, for another example, look at the recent DVDs and Blu-Rays that have come out in the last year or so:  I recently spent $30 for a Blu-Ray disc, and not only did it contain 8 movie trailers, a commercial for the studio, and an MPAA Piracy commercial, but there is no way to skip these commercials in order to get to the main menu of the disc.  I had to sit through 15 minutes of trailers and advertisements on a disc I purchased.  It’s no wonder why people pirate movies. 

The recent influx of auto-play advertisement on websites, however, has really raised the bar on intrusiveness.  Websites and their advertisers have made the assumption (or more likely the decision) that any activity engaged in by the person browsing the internet is less important than the advertisement.  Such hubris is disrespectful and shows a patent disregard for  a company’s customers and website visitors.

When I browse the web, it is rarely done in silence.  I’m often watching television, listening to music, playing a podcast, or enjoying an audiobook.  I multi-task.  I may be streaming a YouTube video on one screen while typing a document on another.  Occasionally, I will be browsing a website in silence at work.  Then, regardless of what I’m doing, I will click onto a website and be assaulted with an auto-play video ad.  These ads are usually mastered at an extremely loud volume, and come blaring out of the speakers with no warning.  Often, these ads are hidden half-way down the page and can’t be easily found.  Some of these video ads don’t even allow you to turn them off.

Recently, I was working on an audiobook on my recording studio PC.  I was in the process of bouncing a track down (playing it back in real time and recording it into a single file.)  The track was about an hour long, and I was about 2/3rd of the way through, when I realized I may have made a mistake on the pronunciation of a word.  I popped open my browser, typed in the word, and went to a dictionary site that had an IPA pronunciation.  This page had an auto-play advert that took over the computer’s sound system without permission, crashed my recording software, and managed to cost me an hour and twenty minutes of time.

Massively intrusive advertising is not new.  In the ‘net age, it started with the pop-up ads, which I block because of their annoyance factor and the possibility of malware infection.  Then websites started using ads that are overlaid on the page and on which you have to click in order see the website beneath.  There was a shortly-lived time when auto-play audio ads were tried.  But the massive influx of auto-start video ads is getting unconscionable.

I understand that most websites make money through advertising.  I get that, and I don’t begrudge them the fact.  That’s why I don’t use ad-blocker software (other than pop-ups) and why, whenever possible, I click on the ads that interest me on sites that I like.  It’s my little way of showing support to the people who make the websites that I use.  They give me the choice to decide what’s important to me and what isn’t, and they don’t force me to click on the ads. 

But I’m not interested in a video ad for a gay dating site to auto-play when I’m sitting in a meeting at work and looking something up to add into the discussion.  I don’t want an auto-play ad to interrupt my music listening or audiobooks.  I don’t want my eardrums and my expensive recording studio speakers blown out because an ad that was mastered so loudly that even Metallica would turn down the volume decides to start playing while I’m looking up the pronunciation of a French word or trying to read a column written by a friend. 

If you have to put video ads on your page, fine.  Turn the volume OFF by default.  Or let me decide if I want to play the video at all.  Don’t assume that I want nothing more than to listen to some breathy-voiced woman talking about online dating sites, or listening to a bunch of menopausal women talking about feminine products.  Don’t force me to search all over  a page to find a miniscule button to turn off an ad for some scam program to buy gold through the mail.

The assumption that my aural attention isn’t already directed elsewhere and that, even more seriously, your inconsiderate ad could disrupt important meetings or damage expensive and delicate audio equipment, is unforgiveable.  And the instant you install an auto-play video ad on your website is the instant that I will no longer visit that website. 

So, to the five readers of this blog: If you come across a website with auto-play ads, please list them in the comments below.  Maybe if we call them out, these sites will stop assaulting us with inappropriate, intrusive, and insulting advertisements.

I’ll start off the list: http:\\www.film.com – you just got the ban hammer.

 Posted by at 10:32 pm  Tagged with: , ,

Health Care: A Few Random Thoughts

 Philosophizing, Rants  3 Responses »
Mar 222010
 

So, surprise of all surprises, congress actually managed to get something accomplished.  As usual, they piddled around for half the time, lost focus so often that the entire organization could be test subjects for Ritalin, and managed to get their ethics and morals dictated to them by corporate America once again proving that most legislators care more about getting re-elected than they do for enacting what they honestly feel is best for the American people.  The healthcare bill is a giant mess…but at least congress managed to pass something.  A ringing endorsement if ever I heard it.

Unlike most Americans, I don’t any strong feelings about health care reform one way or the other.  I believe, for many reasons, that we desperately need some health care reform in this country.  I also believe that forcing people to get insurance that they may not be able to afford (and penalizing them for not getting it) is ludicrous.  Throughout this whole process, I’ve stayed uninvolved, because I’m not entirely sure how I feel about what’s going on or where I stand.  It’s not that I don’t care about the outcome, I just haven’t figured out how I feel about the various methods proposed to get us to the various outcomes.  I do have, nonetheless, some random thoughts about the whole thing. 

I want to preface my random thoughts with an anecdote: I have a beautiful little niece who has some special needs.  She is the sweetest, most loving little girl in the world, and I love her to death.  But mere months after her birth, Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Utah cancelled this beautiful child’s health insurance policy for a ludicrous (and in my opinion, fraudulent, reason).  They left a young couple, with one parent still in school, with tens of thousands of dollars in debt because, essentially, Blue Cross saw the bills start to pile up with no diagnosis.  They found some way to simply cancel the insurance that her parents were paying for because they realized they were never going to make any money from a kid with health issue.  (And according to my nieces pediatricians, Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield did this exact same offensive behavior with alarming regularity.)  They left her parents with no recourse, no money, no way to care for one of the most wonderful children you would ever meet.  And worst of all, they left the burden for caring for this child with an undiagnosed pre-existing condition on the state.  When they cancelled her insurance, they basically ensured that my niece would never again be able to get insurance for the rest of her life, despite the fact that neither she nor her parents had done anything wrong.  This, obviously, shapes my opinion on the state of health care a great deal.

Now, my random thoughts.

Random Thought #1 – None of this hoopla about rules and regulations, new laws, and death panels would be necessary if the insurance companies, malpractice lawyers, and health care providers of this country were a little less interested in lining their wallets and a little more interested in helping people.  I’m not saying that companies and people shouldn’t be adequately compensated, but when you’re more concerned about improving profits over last quarter in order to keep your stock price high for your shareholders than you are about covering a 6-month-old baby with unknown developmental disabilities, then we have a problem.  SHAME ON YOU Regence Blue Cross/Blue Shield.  FOR SHAME.

Random Thought #2 – When it was announced that health care legislation was passed, Twitter and Facebook lit up with indignation like I’ve never seen before.  I don’t mind people having strong opinions…even strong opinions that disagree with my own.  I don’t need to live my life in a world where everyone agrees with me.  But I can’t help but wonder how many of those people who bemoaned the fact that this law passed ever bothered to research the bill beyond what they heard on Fox News or NPR.  How many of them wrote an email or a letter to their congressman or senator?  How many of them marched in a rally or attended a town hall meeting?  If you hate the law so much, then why didn’t you try to do anything to stop it?  If you didn’t try, then you need to shut up about it.  You had your chance to make your voice heard. 

For instance, I find the anti-gay marriage laws (like prop 8) to be absolutely infuriating, discriminatory, and offensive.  And, for understandable reasons, these feelings are deeply held.  But I didn’t write any law-makers.  I didn’t march in any parades.  So until I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is and make my voice heard, then I have no room to speak.  Even though the US is a Republic (i.e., we elect people to represent us), we are a republic founded upon democratic ideals.  If you don’t like something, make your voice heard to the people who represent you.  It’s your responsibility as a citizen.  If you don’t make your voice heard, then you have no right to complain when laws get passed that you don’t like.  If you did make your voice heard, good for you…even if we disagree on the outcome.  YOU can keep complaining.

Random Thought #3 – While I believe that reforming health care is important, I’m not a fan of any legislation that "forces" people to get health care that they may not be able to afford.  The problem is that you can’t apply a specific formula to all people.  Can I afford to spend 10% of my income on health care?  Yeah…it would be tight, but I could do it.  Could I spent 15%?  Barely.  How about 20%?  Not a chance.  But I’m a single man with no children in good health.  I make pretty good money.  I’m already paying about 5% of my income for health insurance and you know what I get from that?  I get a policy that has a $1,850 deductible, and after that, I still have to pay 20% co-pay on most of my doctor’s visits.  I do not have dental insurance.  I don’t have vision insurance.  If I get sick, I generally don’t go to the doctor, because I really don’t have an extra $2,000 a year to spend on top of the 5% of my income that I’m already spending.  If I were to spent 10%, I’d get a policy with a $1250 deductible and 15% co-pay.  In all honesty, I’d be better off with nothing but catastrophic coverage and just paying for it out of pocket.  I basically have to pay all my medical care out of pocket anyway since I never reach my deductible.  The 5% I’m paying now isn’t even worth it.  I might as well be paying nothing and saving that extra 5%. 

Moreover, I’m just not a fan of the Government telling me what to do.  I pay my taxes.  I don’t break the laws.  I don’t want to be forced to spend money I don’t have on insurance I can’t afford in order to have a piece of paper that says I’m covered when, in reality, I’m only covered if I’m sick or injured enough that I’m probably going to die anyway.

Random Thought #4 – I saw a tweet earlier today that summed up my feelings pretty well.  It needed to be translated because it was written in text speak, but the gist of the quote was, "If we are forced to pay for health care reform, the beneficiaries should be forced to face drug tests, and penalties should be applied to those unwilling to quit cigarettes, drugs, or drinking."  As a 31-year-old man who is only VERY slightly overweight, walks at least two miles every single day, eats relatively healthily, has never smokes, drinks, or does drugs, how can I ensure that my money isn’t going to subsidize those people who make stupid decisions.  If my insurance rates are going to go up (and I’m not saying that they are…I don’t know) I want to make sure that the money I’m paying in that isn’t going to help me is at least going to help those like my little niece, not some dumbass drunk driver who gets in an accident or some life-long chain smoker who gets lung cancer.  Where’s the stupid tax in this system?

Random Thought #5 – The death of centrism in politics is one of the most tragic things that can be evidenced in this whole process.  Once again, government proved that they can’t get past party lines to compromise.  It’s not the fault of the Democrats or Republicans, it’s the fault of the system.  Those in seats of power have proven once again that they are only interested in doing what’s going to keep them in office…and unfortunately, what keeps people in office is extremism.  Despite our constant cries for bipartisanship, the American people haven’t proven with their votes that they value people who can compromise in order to accomplish something.  As long as politicians think that the only way to get elected is to pander to those on the extremes of the political spectrum, we’ll never be able to pass the kinds of laws we really should pass.

Random Thought #6 – I’m appalled at the number of people who make up their mind on important issues based on what they hear in a YouTube video, on a 60-second commercials during the morning news, or on a 2-minute segment on NPR.  Nobody does any research on their own.  I can’t speak for the rest of the world, but I make it a habit not to establish my political views based on Tweets and Facebook status updates.  The days of participative governance are apparently over, and that’s sad.  When a talking head on Fox News can tell you what to believe, and you believe them without doing any research on your own, shame on YOU.

Random Thought #7 – Many of the people who complain about how expensive this health care bill is going to be are the same people who doggedly support our involvement in the "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan for the last nine years.  If you’re so worried about cost, maybe we should stop sacrificing our citizens’ lives and throwing money away in the desert, and start using some of those hundreds of billions of dollars we’re throwing into a war against an ideal that we will never be able to win and instead refocus those countless billions into reforming the world at home. (Wow, that’s quite the run-on sentence).

Random Thought #8 – No matter how bleak things seem, the fact of the matter is that the world will not come to an end because Health Care Reform was signed into law.  Nor will the second coming of Christ be ushered in on the wings on Health Care Reform.  Chances are that this law will make next to no impact in the lives of pretty much everyone.  There are literally thousands of bad laws on the books now–some enforced, some not.  Some businesses will fail, others will succeed.  Insurance companies will still find ways to screw the little guy, lawyers will still find ways to line their pockets by suing anything that moves, and people will still get by with our without insurance.  The world will still go on turning.  Children will still starve to death every day in the third world.  People will still meet, fall in love, and get married.  And who knows, maybe ten or fifteen years down the road, we will have worked out the kinks in this new system that NOBODY truly understands, and we’ll find that this was a good thing in the long run.  We may find out that it was one of the biggest blunders in all of political history.  But I think we’ll find out that, like most things, this law had some good and some bad and probably didn’t make much difference one way or the other.  Because, in the end, it all balances out.

 Posted by at 7:59 pm  Tagged with: ,

We Are the World…Unfortunately

 Music, Rants, Videos  1 Response »
Feb 222010
 

So, as many of you probably know, just recently, a group of popular singers got together to remake the old Michael Jackson & Lionel Richie song "We Are the World" in an effort to raise money for Haiti…a laudable goal.  However, the resulting product was…well…judge for yourself. 

First, for reference sake, the original:

 

Then, by comparison, the remake. (You’ll have to fast forward to about 1:30 to get into the actual video and past the telemarketing)

Wow.  Just wow.

Both casts had groups of people who could actually sing well, and some who couldn’t.  (Bob Dylan?  Really?)  But at least the ones who couldn’t sing were actually talented musicians and songwriters.  But the balance between the two is way off.

Let’s look at the list of really talented singers…whether or not you like their work, you can’t deny that they can really sing:

Old Cast:

Lionel Richie
Stevie Wonder
Kenny Rogers
James Ingram
Billy Joel
Dionne Warwick
Michael Jackson
Kenny Loggins
Steve Perry
Huey Lewis
Cyndi Lauper
Ray Charles

New Cast:

Celine Dion
Jennifer Hudson
Pink
Josh Groban
Jamie Foxx
Usher
Adam Levine (Maroon 5)…kinda

I was going to list the really bad singers, from each one, but I realized that I don’t know 80% of the bad singers from the newer version.

 

But to really tell the quality of the productions apart, look at what happens when everyone is singing.  1984′s Quincy Jones was able to wrangle a room full of egos into singing together, blending, and not trampling all over the song.  2010′s Quincy Jones is apparently too old and enfeebled to wrangle a room full of far-less-talented, but far larger egos into any sort of cohesive unit.  It’s like everyone in the room decided that they were going to sing a solo, dammit, even if it didn’t fit, stepped on someone else, or just plain sounded bad.

And then look at the folks in the chorus of the new version who didn’t get to sing solos:  Brandy, Natalie Cole, Harry Connick Jr., India Arie, Gladys Knight, Katharine McPhee, Jordin Sparks, Robin Thicke, Rob Thomas, Ann, Brian, and Nancy Wilson.

Also, the 1985 version didn’t need autotune.  Can someone please explain to me why, in the name of all that’s good and holy, they let Lil’ Wayne and T-Pain "sing?"  If you can’t sing without autotune, then don’t sing.  Don’t even come to the studio.  It was just painful.  And what’s with that moron, Wyclef Jean, who doesn’t even try to sing, but just scream-yodels the sustain of every single note.  Or was that Akon?  I can’t tell.  (I didn’t mind the "rap" in the middle of the new version, but the rest of it…disaster.)

25 years later, and I was able to watch the original version of this song and recognize almost every single one of the performers, despite the fact that the original was recorded when I was only seven years old.  I didn’t know who most of these people were then.  But nearly every single one of them went on to have long, successful careers.  Many of them still have decent careers…those who aren’t dead, anyway.  Many could easily be considered musical legends.  I don’t even know who 2/3rds of the performers are in the new version, but I’m fairly certain that Miley Cyrus, Julio Iglacias, Lil-Wayne, or Nicole Scherizingeramalamadingdong McTrashyPants from the Pussycat Dolls won’t still be performing 20 years from now the next time they remake this song. 

Musically, there’s just no comparison.  It’s amazing. 25 years of absolutely stunning development in studio technology, and instead of getting better, we’ve just flushed an entire generation of musical talent down the drain thanks to Autotune.

Hey 2010 cast of "We Are the World," I appreciate your intent, I really do.  But that craptastic version of a not-particularly-great song to begin with isn’t going to get me to open up my wallet for Haiti.  I think I’ll just go and download Jennifer Hudson’s performance from the telethon instead.  At least girlfriend actually knows how to sing.

 Posted by at 8:53 pm
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