#2230

I am still puzzled by my interaction with the checker at the grocery this afternoon. Somewhere in between piling my cart full of sugared soda, snacky cakes, bacon and other salted pig parts, cakey snacks and cheesy poofs, some fruit and vegetables ended up in my cart. At the checkout, the checker paused when he first reached the produce and at first seemed as puzzled to find them amongst the refined sugars. Then he turned to me, eyes swimming behind coke-bottle glasses, and said, "you want the organic fruit in with the non-organic stuff?"

I almost said "no" as my first thought the "non-organic stuff" he meant was the pack of batteries and ant-poison I was buying until I saw he had paused before loading a plastic bag full of organic bananas with apparently gentile grapes.

"Uh, sure...you can put all the produce together," I said.

Mind you, this wasn't Whole Foods or Sunflower Market. I didn't even know I had picked up organic bananas until he sort of wiggled them at me while I puzzled things over.

After he'd resumed his checking and bagging I couldn't let it go, so I asked him why.

"Oh, some people - you know - they want their organic produce away from the other stuff. If the organic stuff touches regular food it isn't organic anymore." He said this with a little shrug like "To each their own" while I sat there dumbfounded.

Isn't organic anymore.

It apparently loses organic status and becomes.....inorganic? The bananas go from Plantae Angiosperms Monocots Commelinids Zingiberales Musaceae Musa (thank you Wikipedia) to something found on the periodic table of elements.

And I had let it happen. I could feel the blood leaving my face just thinking how I had let my bananas, once as pure as the driven snow get trapped in the same plastic bag with a bordello of seedless grapes. The horror.

But then something took a hold of me. I told the checker to hold on and I took off like an excited St. Bernard puppy for the produce section. Grabbing a fistful of non-organic apples, I made my way through the organic produce like the angel of death. I rubbed the waxy, unclean, contaminated apples upon the virginal peels of the organic bananas, the thin skin of the $4.99 ea Organic Heirloom Tomatoes, and the collection of oddly shaped and colored potatoes that sell for the price of a troy ounce of silver. I used the stalks of non-organic green onions like Satan's paintbrush, soiling the organic plums, pears, and weak looking citrus fruit all the while frothing with the pervasive thought that if I my produce was rendered "in-organic"no one can have purity. Spent, and full of weary accomplishment I rejoined the rest of the checkout line to thunderous applause....

Believe it or not, I can understand wanting ones food to be "organic." But, what I don't understand, and frankly find stupid, is the thought that the mere touching of a leaf of conventionally grown spinach to a leaf of spinach grown organically will destroy the sanctity of that product. The effort that needs to be put forth to maintain the purity of a damn banana is astounding. And not only is that effort astounding, it's a simple veneer! Was the organic fruit delivered on an organic truck, powered by organic fuel, driven by a patchouli wearing hippy with dreadlocks? Was the organic fruit unpacked by workers with organic gloves that had touched nothing but the holy skin of the organic idols?

So, this will just be filed under #2230 of "Why the World Is So Fucked Up and No It's Not Obama's Fault". You can read the other 2229 of them in my book, printed on organic paper with organic ink. The books are placed on the organic, non-bleached hemp and bamboo bookshelf right next to the organic rat poison (now only 80% less effective than real poison) in your local grocery store. Oh, and I'd wash the organic apples in 100% organic spring water from 100% organic springs if I were you....I picked through them shortly after I left the bathroom...they didn't have any organic soap in there and I just didn't want to let anything impure touch my skin.

Dear Landlord, please don't put a price on my soul!

Dear Landlord/Upstairs Neighbor:

Please feel free to ask for help moving that heavy furniture at 5:55 AM. I don't know why you're moving furniture at 5:55 AM, but since I am now up at 5:55 AM due to the insanely loud banging and scraping of heavy furniture being dragged across the floor/ceiling above my head, I would be more than happy to just pick it up and help you out - you obviously are having trouble on your own. Alternatively, should you desire help moving that furniture at a time later than 5:55 AM this would be ideal as it is still SLEEPYTIME at 5:55 AM. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Tronner

All the bad boys are standing in the shadows and all the good girls are home with broken hearts

You're welcome.

Because I have figured out the cause of, and the solution to, all of our economic and political problems.

No need for anything but your thanks and a comfortable monetary compensation

The cause of this whole mess is the battle against the undead.

I blame it all on the vampires. The silly, emotional, vapid, whiny, "undead" vampires. Or, rather the silly, emotional, vapid, whiny, "undead" fans of vampires that have given the world media carte blanch to print, produce, tape, and projectile vomit upon the world a deluge of vampire crap. From Anne Rice's gothy, pederastic Lestat the Whiny Bitch, to the Twhinelight series, to the pornographic True Blood, vampires have taken over the hearts and minds of millions of people yearing to have their neck sucked while having centuries of life to wax poetically on the meaning of life. The person reading the vampire novel gets lost into a world where money and responsibility are never issues. Where the finest clothes, titles, and power are a given. Where history happens around the vampire instead of involving him. Where day to day stress is ignored and where the only real danger is not making it to bed on time. Sooner or later, the vampire fan will fancy themselves as one of the lounging undead; existing in a world where one can bend others to their will; where every meal is orgasmic pleasure. So, instead of personal responsibility, the vampire fan believes themselves to a special person who need not take part in the lives of the little people. After all, they have millennia to figure things out.

So how does one combat this. How does one avoid the temptation to fall into the vampire's hypnotic gaze? The answer isn't a matter of just putting down the vampire books, turning off the pale and dark film adaptations, casting off the black velvet, and getting a tan. The answer to all of this is also found in the undead.

Zombies

A direct opposite to the brooding, whiny undead; the brainless, hungry undead will save the world. In any zombie movie you see all aspects of society working together to defeat the horde of mindless corpses. No one in a zombie movie WANTS to be a zombie -they save the last bullet for themselves just to avoid becoming one of "them". Zombies aren't attractive or intelligent. They are rotting. They stink. And they have horrible fashion sense. Movies and books about the undead aren't romantic and emotional - they are violent, chaotic and funny. In other words they reflect LIFE. Not how it could be or should have been, but how it IS. A person watching a zombie movie thinks "shit has gone down - what are we going to do about it" instead of the vampire fan who thinks "gosh, isn't immortality dreamy?" After vicariously battling the living dead, a person is left with a feeling of comic accomplishment. It takes human (let's face it, AMERICAN) ingenuity to mow down wave after wave of zombies. And while vampire movies one with a sense of entitlement, zombie movies, though apocalyptic, leave a person with a feeling of hope and that even the last spark of humanity holds something worthwhile.

So, stop dreaming about Bella, Lestat, Louis, Edward and TheChickFromXmenandthePiano. Stop shopping for velvet and coffins. Cease your dreams that a handsome, waxy man will one day suck on your neck. Rent a George A. Romero flick. Be proactive! Sharpen your machete. Stockpile boxes of .45 ACP. and 00 buckshot. Being vigilant to the zombie threat is much more worthwhile than whining about why you haven't been chosen to be the immortal lover of an emotional corpse. And if the end finally comes for you, you'll know you will have done everything possible to avoid becoming part of the living dead, instead of lying there and waiting for that last kiss.

A wee log in which I celebrate minor triumphs.

Quick!

Look!

They are THERE!

I have DONE IT....I have SUCCEEDED in altering the ADS by mere WILL (well, mostly repeating several words ad nausea). Now you can get as many condoms, STD tests and hemorrhoid creams your little heart will desire with JUST ONE CLICK.

I have also managed to piss off several people (well, two) just based on my calling Educators "Douchebags" for not showing Obama's speech. So, my poor facebook is down two facist, racist, fucktards and it feels so much the lighter and airier already. That, is why I do this.

Join me next week when I talk about events along my maturity level - like how my first month of Jr. High went.

An Open Letter to the Douchebags that call themselves Edumacators

The state of Utah is apparently so frightened that a black man is going to be talking to their children through a video, that they are requiring all parents sign a waiver and give them the choice to "opt out" of hearing the President speak. Although I'm not a parent, let's just pretend I am.



Dear School District: Attached please find my signature allowing my child to see the video from our President, Barack Obama. I never thought I'd see the day where I must give my child permission to allow him to see the President speak, but apparently you feel this is something as noteworthy as talking about penises and vaginas, AIDS or other squirrly stuff. Perhaps it's because he is liberal (he is), perhaps it is because you think he is a Muslim (he isn't, but who really cares), or because he is black (sort of), who knows. Even President Bush deserved to be heard by the nation.* Despite the fact I strongly oppose having to give it at all, here is my permission nonetheless.

While you're at asking my permission, please do likewise when any Utah Republican Propaganda is brought up. Based on my own experiences in Utah schools at least two of my teachers in Jr. High and two in High School were more than generous in their opinions about how important the Republican party is. I also remember hearing speeches by Ted Wilson (Democrat), Karen Shepherd (Democrat) and Enid Green (a Republican whose congressional campaign was plagued by fraud) without having to bring home anything for mommy and daddy to sign. I also remember hearing a speech by a BYU Football Star (and NFL failure) who spent quite a few minutes talking about his conversion to the LDS Church as part of the public assembly. I don't recall being offered an "alternative activity" for any of these programs.

That brings me to my next point. Please also ask my permission before you allow my child to hear anything about the LDS Church other than in a forum designed to learn about all religions, cults, and various ways of life. I know my own 4th Grade teacher spent the entire year talking about his mission, so I'd personally like to know if my child's current teacher is expounding on his or her experience converting the Gentiles as well. I also remember church-produced videos being shown in my Mormon History...er...Utah History class in the 8th Grade. Please let me know if and when these LDS productions are going to be shown so I may review them before I give consent. If I do not approve, I will give him an appropriate video to watch in return. Lastly, if my child is going to be asked questions like "why aren't you taking [LDS] Seminary?" despite the fact he isn't Mormon, by the President of the Seminary, while at school, as the President of the Skyline High School Seminary did to me in 1993, I would love an opportunity to give my consent (or lack thereof).

Please ask my permission before you run an assembly on drug and alcohol use. I drink and I really don't want a person who's only knowledge of alcohol is stealing and reading the drink menu from TGI Fridays under their covers late at night while shivering in near orgasmic anticipation on the one day they can sneak away and order a Frozen Mickey's MaiTai Surprise while the rest of the family is riding Space Mountain telling my kid how similar they think snorting a line of coke and putting rum in Coke is. I understand that, for a lot of you people, the mere sight of a margarita is a mortal sin, but for those of us who can actually enjoy a drink now or then without turning into a blubbery mess, we don't want our kids thinking we're alcoholics. Please also be sure to check the opiate levels of all of my kids' teachers as well before they are allowed teach. It seems Utahns have a bit of a problem with the Oxycontin.

Also, it is apparent that many Utah school teachers, men and women alike, view the student body to be their own personal dating pool. No less than 8 teachers in the last 2 years have been convicted of raping their students. So, before Ben Jr. gets raped by his teacher, please take the time to talk about appropriate boundaries with your teachers. That is, if you're not too busy cowing down to the dregs of society like you are now, you spineless weasels.

But let's get back to President Obama. Obama Obama Obama. The more you say it, the more you'll realize that this man is our President and not just the guy that was running against the old dude and Sarah Palin. (I'm surprised that Utah didn't latch on to her as "Utah's Own", she did go to school in North Utah, aka Idaho) Please face the fact that the majority (far more than those that chose Shrub) of Americans voted for him. Despite the divisive politics that are being run right now, he is still allowed, and likely SHOULD give speeches to the youth. Maybe it's to stay in school. Maybe it's to give a message of hope when all they are hearing is doom. Maybe, because of all the way so MANY people (I'd like to say "on both sides" but let's face it, there are some really "special" people on the far right) are acting in this political atmosphere, he wants to talk about respect. Respect for oneself. Respect for one's teachers. And respect for this county. This form to make sure I approve. This form respects none of that. So please. One last time. I allow my child to hear the President of the United States of America. And when you're done reading this letter. Please crumple it up and shove it up your sanctimonious ass.

Publish Post

* Of course he deserved respect. How would we have watched the Daily Show or Colbert without a daily doee of Shrub's antics?

It Didn't Work....or maybe I'm just impatient

It didn't work.

I went through all that time to type out a Preparation H commercial on my blog and the space age technology of the AdSense didn't have sense enough to pick up even the slightest hint it did what it was supposed to do.

So, I'm sorry that I talked about the painful, burning and itching, and rubbers, and all sorts of things. I'm just sorry.

Ads

One may notice I have ads on this site. Originally, of course, I was lured to place ads by the hope and prayer of money. Then I moved the decimal place over six spots to where my page views per day was and came to the quick realization that I would make about $.01 every seventeen years.

Then I saw that the ads are customized to content.

That is wonderful.

So, much like Gmail looks through your texts to determine what ads to place next to your email, AdSense looks through the blog text to best advertise various links.

For example: if this blog were about fishing, I'm sure that the more I talked about fishing, it would, sooner or later, develop ads consistent with my fishing blog's content. It would see I talked about going fishing, catching fish, gutting fish, filleting fish, making fish gumbo, fish stew, fish creole, fish cocktail, pan fried fish, baked fish, or breaded fish. I would talk about fishing lures, fishing flies, fishing rods, fishing reels, fishing poles, fishing waders, fishing boots, fishing hats....you get the pitcher. ("I sure do, Bubba").

But that also makes me want to use this program for evil. For bad. To mess with the poor system.

I just can't figure out a way to do that.

So instead, let me tell you about the conversation I heard the other day on the bus between two old men.

Old Man #1 "Boy, Virgil, it is so hot out today, my hemorrhoids are acting up. I can't hardly sit down because my hemorrhoids are so painful. They burn and itch. Won't anything relieve the painful burning and itching caused by my hemorrhoids?"

Old Man #2 "Armando, it's OK that you have hemorrhoids. But are you sure that you don't have something more serious? Like an STD? Perhaps the burning and painful itching you think is caused by hemorrhoids is actually caused by Gonorrhea, or Chlamydia, or Syphilis or Herpes. Perhaps you have a STD causing the burning and painful itching and not hemorrhoids."

OM #1. "Goddamnit Virgil! I don't have an STD. I have hemorrhoids! Hemorrhoids! Hemorrhoids! Hemorrhoids! Can't you hear? I have a painful burning and itching that makes it hard to sit down. Don't you know of any creams I can use for my hemorrhoids?"

OM#2: "Oh, Armando! It's OK if you have an STD. You just need to be more careful. You need to use condoms or abstinence. After all, if the State of Utah says abstinence is the best sex education, who am I to disagree. But anyway. you should really use a condom next time. You can use any condom, really. Any brand. Anything like Ramses, or Trojan, or Durex. Any condom will do. I promise."

OM#1 :Virgil, I swear to God I will suffocate you with a box of Trojan Her Pleasure Ribbed and Lubricated condoms if you don't start listening to me. I have a painful burning and itching caused by hemorrhoids. I am embarrassed to talk about it to my wife, and instead confided with you on this crowded bus. Please listen to me complain loudly about my hemorrhoids and stop talking about possible STDs I may have including Gonorrhea, Syphilis, Chlamydia, Molluscum, Herpes etc..."

This conversation went on for quite awhile.

And it really didn't make much sense. Just a lot of talk about hemorrhoids and condoms. Which are not even really related and is sort of an offending topic to be talking about on a bus for hell's sake. I got off before it ended, maybe they tied up the hemorrhoids and STDs before they got off.

Oh well, back to the ads. The AdSense Ads on the left side of the page. They're supposed to reflect the overall content on my blog. So, let me know if you see anything useful. I'm sure they'll want you to follow the link.

Distemper

I have a temper.

Not a huge surprise there.

The thing about having a temper is that you despise your own temper and somewhat empathize with those that have one themselves. Especially when they're losing it and you can't help but watch them slide into histrionics when everything with you is just peachy.

That doesn't mean I'm making an excuse about having a temper. Nor am I excusing those that do. What I despise though, more than a man or woman with an uncontrollable temper, is those that exploit it in others. Those that goad, poke, prod and cajole (yes, cajole) someone into losing their temper, all the while sitting back and acting innocent. Once that person starts down the (insert phrase that is synonymous with "slippery slope" but much better than that phrase) of losing their temper they are lost to all the exit signs. It's sort of like watching the rapid scene in Deliverance (rapid scene...r-a-p-i-d...not the other scene starting r-a-p). e.g. you think things are a calm river and all of a sudden you end up in rapids and your friend goes T.U..

This seems nowhere more prevalent than the practice of law. (coincidentally the "other scene in Deliverance starting with r-a-p" is also very prevalent in the practice of law).

And it is often the hardest part of what I do (again, we're talking about losing the temper, not Ned Beatty's hindquarters. I don't know why I even brought that up in the first place). It's hard because I often can see the goading coming. I can see Them slowly prodding my client's thin skin waiting for the moment where the temper is lost and They can sit back and look at me and point and say "See?"

It's not like I just sit there. I would be as successful as I am if I didn't have some tricks up my sleeve. But sometimes you can see the train wreck coming and sometimes you can't do anything about it. And sometimes you just have to try to pick up the pieces afterwords.

But it's hard to do. Just ask Jon Voigt

The Sun Also Rises

What did we find out when the world woke up on the following days?

August 17, 1977
December 9, 1980
April 1, 1994
April 6, 1994
August 10, 1995
September 1, 1997
July 17, 1999
February 9, 2007
January 23, 2008
June 26, 2009

Answer - the sun still rose in the east ,birds still sang, dogs still barked and cats still caused me to sneeze; rain still fell and flowers still bloomed, children were still conceived, people still died, rivers continued to flow into the ocean, the waves continued to crash on sand, apples miraculously still dropped from trees, politicians still lied and the sun still set in the west, as it had for billions of years.

Although the days before these ordinary days were also the same they were different in only one thing. A small (yet large enough to make their histrionic wails rise to the heavens) minority of people believed that day was the last day on earth that anything would remain the same.

And they all went to bed.

And they all got up.

And they all went on, the same as before.

Mea Culpa...Mea Maxima Culpa

It's been 6 months since my last blog.....

It's not as if I've had nothing to speak about....it's not that I've been lazy. I have just neglected this corner of interwebrealestate for the last little bit.

Rest assured, however.....I made it out of Boise alive.

I made it out of Boise alive and one of the things I was doing while waiting (ultimately in vain) for Skywest to come up with something resembling "customer service" was enjoying the vast knowledge base supplied by Wikipedia.

I love Wikipedia. I know it's wrong. As someone who used to pride himself on his ability to find relevant case law and articles, I should be ashamed that such a website exists.

But I love it nonetheless.

I love it for it's comprehensive (albeit shady) view of anything pop culture. If I want to find out how historically inaccurate Braveheart was I go to Wikipedia. Or, if I want to find out which episodes of Law and Order guest starred Michael Imperioli. Or, if I want to find the trade name of a medication without a billion pop-up ads. Or, in the case of that fateful night.....a comprehensive and shady view of the The People of the State of California v. Michael Joseph Jackson

Don't ask me how I ended up on that topic. But, I ended up learning all about a case that was, in reality, pretty uninteresting. I mean, it was a standard trial. People said this. Other people said "Nuh-uh" The Defendant hired then fired superattorney/mediaprostitute (picture Janice Dickinson with a J.D.), Mark Geragos and then hired the even stranger looking but oddly devoid of ickiness, Thomas Mesereau; he was found Not-Guilty and the crazy people out front released a bunch of doves which ended up circling around and pooping on people everywhere (a fact that, sadly, wasn't included in the latest Wikifraudia entry). You know - typical boring crap!

And because it was relatively boring, the entire action of me looking up all that information had escaped my mind. It had escaped my mind until now - when the King of Pop died and what had been a relatively exciting political news week suddenly became a mass amount of hysterical pop culture vomit.

So, goodbye Michael Jackson. You kept me busy and sane for at least one hour of my life.

Airport Woes

I should really rename this blog "the road to my first heart attack: an intimate journey between reader and writer down the path to congestive heart failure" because everything I write about has a tendency to raise my blood pressure. Right now, my ire is focused to the small man sitting about seventy-five feet away from me.

My dislike of this man is compounded by the fact that I should have arrived in Salt Lake City about twenty minutes ago. Instead, I'm sitting in BOI, no end in sight to me in Idaho. And, because I'm rather miserable - I feel much better by letting you know all about it.

The man - the little man - is talking loudly. Loud enough that I can hear his entire conversation. His entire CELL phone conversation. I'm pretty sure his loudness is the goal. Apparently he is a VERY IMPORTANT PERSON. Apparently, he has CLIENTS. Apparently his clients want to DEDUCT things. They want to ITEMIZE things. He just loudly SCOFFED at the idea of an AUDIT. He just had a lengthy diatribe about the KETCHUM property, just to show that not only is HE a VIP, but his CLIENT is too. BRUCE WILLIS? HARRISON FORD? KATHY GRIFFIN? Who KNOWS who could be on the other end of the phone.

I'm pretty sure he's actually making this up. I'm pretty sure this person he's loudly talking to does not exist. He just wants us to know HOW important he IS while being stuck because HE is inconvenienced. He is IMPORTANT and the PLANE should take off JUST FOR HIM.

This brings me back to my brief love affair with Social Psychology. How people interact with others when they are either STRESSED, PISSED or just want to be NOTICED. Case in point is the Ringtone. The more obnoxious the ring-tone the more obnoxious the person. The more obnoxious the person, the longer they will wait to answer their phone when it is ringing. For example: Douchie McDouchington, twenty five feet to my left, has Speedy Gonzolez as his ring-tone "Andale Andale - Arriba Arriba (vrooooom).....Andale Andale, Arriba Arriba (vrooooom)" His phone has rang anywhere between four and seventy-six times in the last twenty minutes. Contrast that to Hottie in the Green Pea Coat (not Pea Green Coat) who has the meek and mild Cingular Ring Tone.

People are frantically trying to re-book flights. I'm personally just sitting here because I'm pretty confident my flight is going to take off sometime before 9am tomorrow morning. But I've heard almost everyone's personal story - just by sitting here and type type typing on my comptuer. We have VIP Accountant Man; we have Angry Lawyer One and Angry Lawyer Two (I am just Cynical Lawyer Sixteen) they have clients too, but they either don't speak about them or don't talk loudly enough that I can hear. This is probably a good thing: even Angry Lawyers (especially Angry Lawyers) can get in trouble with the bar); we have I Have To Get To Vegas Now; (followed by I Have to Get To (insert city here). No one is visibly crying...yet. Just me...a little...on the inside.