The Price Of Greatness

"The price of greatness is responsibility."
- Sir Winston Churchill

For my first proper post in 5 months, I felt that what I must do, not for myself, but for mankind, is to write an open letter to our Jablogger-in-chief, Jablogger. Jablogger has strayed from the blogging path over the last few months, and I felt that he should be informed that it is his duty to heed the words of the great Winston Churchill. Click below to continue...

and we're back

 
If there is a hell, a great percentage of America's senior citizens will find themselves there based on how they pawn themselves off as handicapped when in fact they are just old lazy fucks. When did handicap stop meaning "paralyzed, deaf, blind" and start meaning "slower than i was 20 years ago due to the natural phenomenon of aging, which everyone goes through by the way, so now my bastard self can get away with parking in spots meant for people who really need it"? Everyone slows down with age and that's fine, but no where else in the world do they get a custom shopping carts to take them from their couch to the kitchen to grab some more potato chips. There is a CLEAR line between lazy and handicapped and it should be respected.
If you're too lazy/old to walk 20 feet from a parking spot to your denture store, I sure as fuck don't want your ass driving a 2 ton piece of machinery on the same road as me. Take the bus, pay someone to drive you, or go to amazon.com.

Remember, Remember

The fifth of February.

On this day, in the year of our Lord, One Thousand Nine Hundred Seventy Nine, the Lord gazed upon the world he had created and proclaimed,

"Let there be... Jablogger"

Some might say it must have been a slow day. Not me though.

Happy Birthday to our Jablogger in Chief.

The Question Elicitor

-

It really annoys me when people say or do something just so you can ask them a question, instead of just coming out and saying it, or at least asking you if it is ok if they vent their lame problems to you.

Example: Person 1 walks in, does an overly dramatic sigh.

Person 2, "What's wrong?"

Person 1, "Oh nothing, it's just that blah, blah, blah, etc. etc."

Person 2 (in their mind), "Fuck me, why did I ask?"

I figure they just want to tell you something, but they don't want it to seem like they are whining or bragging, depending on the circumstances, so they do this lameass deflection of a conversation starter. They might walk into a room and say, "What a shitty day". And we, like idiots, all feel some need, through social conditioning or whatever fucked up norms we are accustomed to, to pounce on this response with a "What's wrong?" or "Why do you say that?". I have never figured out why I am always a sucker for this. I say sucker because 99 out of 100 times, I wish I had never fell for this suicide inducing trap in the first place. What I have effectively done, is invited a conversation I am pretty sure I never wanted, all because I have been conditioned to bite at these conversational dog biscuits. It's even worse when they have follow up statements. At that point I have no idea how long I'm stuck in this mess, and once it's started I can't dismiss it because then I become the asshole. After all, I asked what the problem was. I get relegated to the role of conversation prolonger, throwing in a "uh huh" or "oh really", counting the moments until this verbal waterboarding is over.

I have tried to simply ignore this mental chess game, however, the only thing worse than sitting through an unwanted conversation is the awkwardness of the person repeating the process in order to get you to bite. The reason it's worse is because the person will give up on the statement and just come out and say what they wanted to in the first place, lameass deflections be damned. Better to just get it out of the way.

So for my sake, if you've got something to say, just say it. You know I'm going to listen, it's not like I have a choice in the matter.

Where have they gone?

We live in a world far more advanced than the one we grew up in. In the last 15 years we have gone from America Online Dial Up connection, that disconnected when a family member from overseas would call the house, to an era where you can browse the web while talking to your family member from overseas and at the same time downloading the new Jay-Z music video and keeping track of how many miles you have ran and how many calories you have lost, all on your cellphone. We live in an age where we have electric cars, little robot vacuum's that sense the dirt on the floor, chairs that give you a Swedish massage, TIVO and freaking laser eye surgery.

That all being said we have, as a society, severely digressed in one very important area... Cartoons. This morning I woke up and thought to myself "hmmm, it's Saturday, maybe I should re-live my childhood and tune in to some cartoons." As most of us late 20 year old and early 30 year old's remember, Saturday morning cartoons were the best. You had G.I. JOE, He-Man, Transformers and Voltron which would as a young boy breed your inner warrior. After watching those shows I would be all wired up ready to save the planet by killing any and all forces of evil. Then of course you had the ever inspiring trio of Duck Tales, Rescue Rangers and Tail Spin. By the time I would be finished watching those three I was ready to go to Africa and search for the hidden treasures of King Solomon. (Shout out to Smurfs, Dennis the Menace, Gummi Bears and my favorite Thunder Cats). Yet this morning to my shock and disappointment I was confronted by Dora the Explorer, Pokemon, Sponge Bob Square Pants and last but not least Tele Tubbies. What in the name of everything holly happened to cartoons? What are we feeding into our children's minds with these for the lack of better term retarded shows? Tele Tubbies will be giving me nightmares tonight...

The most surprising part of all this is that kids these days are more advanced than we were as children. They fill up places like Howie's Game shack, spend $4.50 on an energy drink and plug their minds into some online death match for seven hours. So the question is how is it possible that the same kids that grow up watching these lame cartoons turn to Halo and crazy first person shooter gamers while those of us who watched G.I. Joe ended up playing Tecmo Super Bowl or just would go outside in the fresh air and shoot a basketball?

After several minutes of contemplation I could only come up with one answer... It's a conspiracy. You see the more lame and retarded you make the cartoons you push the kids away from them. By pushing the kids away from the television (that the parents would pay the monthly bill on anyways) you are creating a market for video games, internet game software, more powerful computers, energy drinks and ADD pills. Case in point, when I go to Best Buy or Toys-R-Us this morning to buy my little one year old cousin a xmas gift what I am going to run into is a bunch of parents running around frantically fighting over the last new edition of Modern Warfare or Command and Conquer for their zombie look alike 13 year old who has had way too many red bull drinks for 10 am, who still doesn't like girls and who thinks John Madden is currently a great quarterback in the NFL because his name is on a video game.... So Sad.

So my solution, well I don't have one... or at least have not had time to contemplate yet. But for now I will resort to downloading my favorite cartoons from torrents and by the help of my friends connecting my computer to my television and to live stream an old G.I. Joe episode through a hub network from a torrent that was uploaded in India in a zip file... Oh my god I am turning into one of them.... FML.

P.S. Deadline met.

The Great Bluetooth Bamboozle

I want to see a report chronicling the effect that the laws concerning using your cell phone in the car have had on the drivers of California. We haven't been able to talk on the phone (without a handsfree headset or device) or text message for quite some time now. I bet there hasn't been much of an effect, and I would also bet that we were just the pawns in a massive chess game perpetrated by the Bluetooth lobby of California. They outlaw holding the phone to your ear in the car, and Bluetooth sales go up. Then bluetooth sales stagnate for a bit, after people decide, "screw this, I'll just text people instead", so they outlaw that too.

Somewhere along the line, I bet the huge Bluetooth conglomerates got together and decided that they needed to expand their target markets. "No more can the future of our companies rely on sales limited to attention whores and douchebags," some insightful executive must have said. "How shall we make it so that the commoner will buy our product, and in effect, become the very douchebag he hath loathed for lo these many years?" he pondered. (In my mind, the Bluetooth lobby meetings take place in a Shakespearean play, apparently). "Eureka!" he exclaims. "We shall scare the masses, make them believe that actually holding one's device to one's ear makes it dangerous!" (forget the act of having a conversation as a distraction). And so, the scare tactic worked, they got their lobby to get Schwarzenegger to pass the bill, and I'm out 50 bucks on a headset that makes me look like an also-ran in a "Real Douchebags of Orange County" contest.

But wait, another exec would counter with "But m' lord, what about those that doth text whilst operating their motorcars?".

"Ne'er you worry" he counters, "We shall strike down thy texting privileges as well".

And there you have it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I am going to put my phone on speakerphone and hold it near my face while I am driving. That way if a cop rolls by I can drop the phone to my lap but still continue my conversation. Some might say I doth protest too much.

reverse-bump

 
Pretty self explanatory, so uh, yeah...