"Modern Marvels"

I have made no secret about the fact that I watch a lot of trashy TV. It's entertaining, relaxing since I don't need to think & end up feeling better about myself, and I get to yell at the TV. However those that know me also know that I watch a good amount of educational programming and reading. Hello, do you think all of this interesting conversation and factoids come from nowhere? The History Channel, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, PBS, etc. yo! Plus, and I cannot stress this enough, TWITTER IS NOT JUST FOR INANE STATUS UPDATES. It's not just about whether or not Ashton Kutcher just got off the pot. Seriously people, depending on what and who you are following it can be a nonstop stream of interesting articles, pics, and tidbits customized to what really interests use. Avail yourself to the wealth of content.

As usual I digress. The point is that one of my favorite History Channel shows has gone down the tubes (no pun intended). I remember when I used to see Modern Marvels on the Comcast guide and what I was going to watch was a no brainer. Now I have to go and see what the topic is before I "give it a try". The topic used to just be the surprising bonus after you had already changed the channel.

The topics of the shows really is where the problem lies. They used to have storied about the latest, tallest skyscrapers, or an incredible bridge, or the latest space technology. All things that I know nothing about, are completely fascinating to most people, and served up in a manner that does not make me feel as if I am trying to get my doctorate in physics. AWESOME. Slowly I have seen a decline, almost as if they are running out of topics. I have written down some of the worst that I have seen lately and they are as follows:

• Coffee
• Corn
• Shovels
• Truck Stops
• Super Steam

If you are not on the page with me yet, those are all super lame. Let me just say that some of these episodes can be interesting. You know in that, "things you didn't know about seeming mundane topics," kind of way. You know what? I basically know how coffee and corn get to our pantries. What's being buried by a shovel is generally more interesting than the tool. I don't need to know any more about the "interesting" things that happen surrounding truck stops, and no matter what you do with steam it is still just water and heat! There is nothing particularly modern or marvelous about any of those things. You have set a higher standard by virtue of your title. Save that pedestrian shizz for an 8 minute segment on How Things Work where they belong.

I Couldn't Make This Up If I Tried

I am not quite sure if I should be telling this story, but it is one of the funniest things that I have heard in awhile so I am going to do it anyway.

My mom had a neighbor that is fairly peculiar. She has lived in her house for just about as long as my mom which is a good 25 years. She is one of the sweetest, most caring women that I know, but she also seems a little off at times. I don't know what it is, but she seems almost too nice, and like she really needs a companion (if you know what I mean). She mows her lawn in a dress or in her fatigues from her stint in the army. She knows everyone in the neighborhood's business, but I think it is because she is all up in it (ninja style). And she has always had this bizarre relationship with her animals over the years (again in need of companionship).

As it was Christmas, me and my mom had seen a lot of her lately. You know, exchanging presents, shoveling snow, talking about the blackout, her asking why my mom had not put up her Christmas tree in a timely manner. The normal neighbor things...except for the Christmas tree stuff. After Christmas, while my mom was getting the snow off of her car, our neighbor popped up right next to my mom (ninja style), scaring my mom half to death as she generally does. My mom does not do well with fright and I think had had enough neighbor interaction for a while, so she says, "God! You scared me half to death! What do you want?!?" Our neighbor responded,"I'm sorry. Everyone says I sneak up on them (because she does, because she is all up in their business). I just wanted to tell you that Rose (her latest dog) died." Mom said that she was sorry for her loss and wished her well.

As my mom is a good woman, she felt bad about snapping at our neighbor in a time of distress and decided to get her some roses for losing Rose. She went to our neighbors house to drop off the flowers where she was thanked... and then pulled in to give her last respects to Rose. My mom was confused as it had been 3-4 days since Rose had died. Had she already been cremated and put in a creepy urn? Was she buried in the backyard? None of these would make for an interesting story.

No, as my mom came into the kitchen, Rose was in a plastic crate apparently waiting for her burial... in the spring when the ground thawed out!!! Oh it gets worse. Rose, having been dead for half a week, was now filled with death fluid and was double to triple her normal size!!!! Our neighbor explained that her friends were coming over to "drain" Rose because her vet predicted she was about to explode!!!!! As she is explaining this she is patting the bloated Rose consolingly. Our neighbor then went to touch my mother to let her know it was okay to say goodbye. At this point my mother drops the roses on the floor and screams as she runs from the house, ripe with the smell of 3 day old dead dog, right past the friends that were coming to drain Rose!!!!!!! My mom explained that our neighbor was lucky that the screen door was open otherwise there would have been a Sharon shaped hole in it.

Later our neighbor came over to talk to my mom. She said that she was sorry, and knew that it was "a little gross". She just wanted my mom to be able to say goodbye. Apparently Rose had now been drained and was buried in the snow until the ground was soft enough for her to be buried.

Some points to make about this: Granted the dog was out of the house, but that is still gross, and possibly illegal (at least I would think/hope). Also, our neighbor does not own the house; she rents. I'm not sure you should be burying a dog on rented land even if you have lived there for 25 years. Also, why are you still renting after 25 years? God love the woman, and I know that he does, but she is a bit crazy.

How Sweet It Is

Last night I saw the new Splenda with Fiber commercial on TV for the first time. Apparently since we are all lacking in fiber, Splenda will now offer its sweetener with a gram of fiber in each packet. Now I watch my Zonda Health Bites so I know how important fiber is. However, this new offering really disturbs me. I think that they may have forgotten to pay attention to the user experience here.

I, as I assume is the case with most people, really only use Splenda in my morning coffee at work. This is even depicted on the box. I like my coffee sweet and creamy, so I use three packets of Spenda for each coffee thermos full. Now if you combine coffee and three grams of fiber, that is just begging for an explosive situation. How will work get done? God forbid someone have two or even three cups! And what about the smokers?!? Maybe if you are Bea Arthur things will even out, but I think we all know she is an original.

I am worried about the security of America. And what if this egregious assault starts to hit home? What happens if the current huge Costco box of Splenda that we have at the office is depleted before the recall, and is replaced by the snarling beast with fiber? I may need to talk to someone. I may need to defend the homeland.

It's Like America's on a Treadmill - We've Gone So Far, Yet Stayed in the Same Place

Okay, this has begun to bug me more and more as we get closer to Election Day (and as more and more people take a stance on Facebook), but I think I finally have to say something to clear it out of my system so I can focus on other things.

The issue we have for this rant is Prop 8 in California and Prop 102 in Arizona. Both seek to define marriage as strictly being between a man and a woman, aka no homo marriage. These props are pissing me off, but it’s not even because I think we should let anyone who actually wants to get married to do so, or even that I am so appalled by such conservative thinking. While all of those things do anger me, at this point it is just the stupidity of the semantics of the whole thing, and the fact that as a society we are still at this point that is causing my rage.

Conservative and “traditional” thought is what it is, but the stance of Democrats like Barack really kills me. “I believe in civil unions, but not in marriage.” What the fuck is that? Seriously on the governmental level, what’s the difference? Let’s set aside religious ceremonies as the government should not be involved in that and could not legislate what different religious groups need to allow anyway. My friend Jenni wants to be married to her future husband by a justice of the peace, with no religious aspects, a strictly civil ceremony. Would people say she is any less married? More importantly, it is interesting that in the eyes of the law even if you have a religious ceremony, you are actually not legally married until you and your witnesses sign the civil document.

It is sad that the world has come so far, but is still so afraid. When people like Barack and Joe say, “I believe in civil unions for gay couples, and not marriage,” they are really saying, “I believe in gay marriage, but I can’t say that for fear of backlash from the ridiculous undercurrent of religion and ignorance that flows through this puritanical country, so if I say I just believe in civil unions, I can also still say I don’t believe in gay marriage, even though they are pretty much the same thing. Thank God the Americans that would be involved in the backlash are also mostly too stupid to know I am saying the same thing.” Seriously, give me a break. It also shows that for all of those people that support different lifestyles, the majority of America does not, hence the political suicide.

As someone that is apart of a minority group, it kills me when I still see modern day prejudice that is deemed okay by a large portion of society. Haven’t we learned that all of that generally goes away over time, and we look back in horror at how simple-minded we were? We do the same thing to people who are overweight. Seriously if someone is not harming someone, we should probably leave them alone. Instead we chant about the destroying of the sanctity of marriage (yet you still go to Vegas), express shock about how early in primetime they are showing a dude on dude lip lock (yet cheer on the skanks making out at the bar), and use the word gay as a pejorative to describe something in meetings at work (I witnessed this one twice). Now if someone thought that an interracial couple marrying was destroying the sanctity of marriage, or worse, the Aryan race, that a kiss between that couple before 9pm on network television was unseemly, and said that a bad decision from a client was totally niggerish, that person would be looked at by most of society very differently.

The worst part is that people are wasting time and money on both sides campaigning for and against these propositions. How about we let anyone who dares to make a lifetime commitment to one another do so, and we can use the campaign money to fund a social program, perform cancer research, or feed starving children in a conflict torn area of Africa. Anything else that instead of consisting of judging and limiting people, builds them up and expands possibilities. Honestly, I can’t believe I have to even writing something like this. When we are “okay with the gays” what will be the next thing that we will move on to despise. I am constantly surprised by humanity’s lack of ability to love, and infinite ability to hate.

New Reality Show: Third World America

Tune into your local news and you’ll see it. Seriously when did the United States become a third world country? Okay maybe I am exaggerating a bit, but not by much.

First and foremost, we have this economic crisis. While I do understand some of the hard times, I really don’t get how it got this way so fast. A week or so ago some financial institutions were failing and some people were losing their jobs, but those companies had made bad business decisions, times are tough, so it goes. Fast forward to the end of last week and the US economy is in ruins, all financial institutions are in dire straits, and all that can help us is for the government to “invest” $700 billion, otherwise we will be in a depression by Monday when the Asian markets open. The worst part is that normally this would be political fear mongering in order to get a bill passed, but that was not the case this time. Monday came, the bill did not pass, and the Dow dropped almost 800 points, the most in history (by points, not percentage, but still).

I also look on the news and see that people in the southeast don’t have any gas. WTF?!? Seriously, do you know how much attitude that I would be coping if my local gas station did not even have $4/gallon gas to sell me! Atlanta has a lot of Black people so I am sure an a-bomb (attitude bomb) is going off (I can get away with such racially insensitive comments)! I swear, this is not the 70s. Apparently this is also not the America that I know… and love.

The whole economic situation is whacked. I don’t really agree with the principles of the bailout, that America can invest and ride out the waves until the market gets back to normal, and will eventually get most or all of the money back. Conceptually okay, but in reality I do not think they would get most of the money back. However, that is not what concerns me about the vote. What concerns me is that this was pretty much seen by everyone as the only way to avert crisis, and most of the representatives felt that we probably should pass it. However, they did not vote for it because it was unpopular with their constituents and elections are in a few short weeks, and because Nancy Pelosi shamed the Republican economic policy so Republicans had to pout (although 60% of Democrats voted to pass the bill in comparison to 30% of Republicans).

I know that you have to represent the views of your constituents, but what happened to doing what you believe is right? Why is politics now a ridiculous game of polls and spin. That used to be reserved for the strip club. Honestly I feel sometimes like people just want to say what “sounds good” or won’t get them in trouble instead of speaking the truth and doing what is in the best interest of the country. In fact I think that is a major contributing factor to the situation that we’re currently in. “Well, the economy’s bad, cuz I know nothing about the economy and we’re spending a ton at war. Why don’t I take the Americans taxes, and then give it back to them as an ‘Economic Stimulus Package’.”

I work in advertising so I know that people respond to empty tag lines like, “Lowering taxes,” and “The War on Terror,” and “Spreading Democracy Throughout the World,” and “Enduring Freedom.” However, when you have spent over $500 BILLION on a war that you expected to last only a couple of weeks (we’re 5 years in), you need taxes to pay for it. Fighting a war on terror is great conceptually, but fighting against a concept is a losing battle, as it was with Communism, because the concept will always exist. Instead fight again the physical, bad manifestations of that concept, such as Bin Laden or countries creating nuclear weapons. If we want to spread Democracy, why don’t we start with the US since it is not a true democracy, or socialist France, parliamentary England, or Monaco’s “hop, skip, and a jump away from dictatorship” constitutional monarchy? Other systems do work and we need to pay credence to that, particularly as ours is failing in terms of stability. Don’t even get me started on Enduring "Freedom"...

All I am saying is that America is a great country, but we are starting to lose a lot of the things that made us great. We think largely only of our individual selves, and not in the larger context of the country, let alone the world. Apathy has left us as carcasses for the vulturous spin doctors of politics. So many fought and died across the centuries for us to be apart of the decision making of this country and to build it to be the super power of the world, and we don’t even care enough to educate ourselves in order to make informed decisions. Most have no idea that America is no longer seen as the rich, sexy, supermodel of the world that everyone wants to take to the after party, but rather is now seen as the hot tranny mess that need we need to put in a cab home while making apologize to the Arabic cab driver (too much?).

Anyway, point is we need to get it together. Stop cross-dressing, go to rehab, and build back up your credit by stop spending money on bars and blow, tranny America. If you are lucky enough to have more money than you need, stop being a douchebag by hording and coveting even more, and screwing the rest of the American people. If you want to be a representative of the people of this country, get some balls (or hardy ovaries) and stand up for what you think is right and have honest discussions about your differences of opinion instead of slinging mud, or speaking in vague, non-committing language. If you don’t really care about public policy and the world around us, let’s put you on that MTV Exiled show, send you to North Korea for a week, and see how much you “don’t care”. I love crap television as much as if not more than the next guy, but if it makes it easy for you, think of the news as a reality TV show. You do not need to listen to me, but let’s see where the great US of A goes if we do not heed these warnings.

The Fountain of Youth Smells Like Beer

I live a couple of blocks east of Westminster College and I often am around the University of Utah (trolling for the innocent no doubt j/k). With school starting up again I have been getting very nostalgic. I love the fact that I am a “responsible” adult and have “left” the stupidity of college life behind. However, I love the smell of youthful exuberance in the air. I love the clearly underage freshmen buying beer at the corner store and piling into an overcrowded car as the campy popo (campus police for those of you who aren’t in the know) watch on. I love to see two kids on skateboards holding on to the side of a car and being dragged at 1am. I love seeing the latest kitschy messenger bags and the latest hats which harkens to college radio indie alt rock. Oh how I love rowdy college football celebrations. I swear at this point I am ready to go back and get my MBA so I can stroll around campus and fully immerse myself in it.

However, it also makes me feel a bit old. Somehow my life has switched from hanging out with people that are older than me to hanging out with a lot of people younger than me. I am now part of the “cool” older guys that we hang out with group. I was at my usual bar, and as I stood in line (first problem) I said to Lindsey, “We don’t own this anymore.” She responded, “I know. Kids do. 21 year olds.” I immediately reacted and said, “21 year olds aren’t kids!” as I still in my mind considered myself apart of that young 20 something crowd. You know, the “as long as you can go to the bar, you’re okay” mentality. However, it got me thinking, and there is a huge difference between my late 20s self and those “first” venturing out to the bar. To add insult to injury I found out that a special someone that I have a kindergarten crush on is in fact 21. I wasn’t planning on going after people younger than me until I was in my 40s.

While I am not to the level of giving up that Lindsey clearly is, I still felt old even though I clearly am not. I am now envisioning the complete meltdown I will be having at my 30th birthday party. In the meantime, I am just going to feed off of this youthful exuberance and revel in the fact that even though I may have a few years on them, I also have more money.

Someone's Got Issues

So I have a few issues. I guess we all do. However two of mine are currently plaguing me. First, I think that I might have a fear of commitment... to the wrong person. I stipulate that I think that I am ready for a relationship. I'm pretty sure. I have always been afraid of being alone because I thought that I would never get to a place where commitment is what I wanted, and if I did, it would be too late, i.e. I would get to that place once I was so old and gross no one would actually want me, which is why I would be in "that place". I am mostly kidding about that last sentence. Now I think that the real issue is that I do not want to be committed to someone, just to be committed to someone. I'm not afraid of commitment per se, definitely at this point, but i am very afraid of committing to the wrong person and then being stuck, or even worse stuck, then unstuck at 49.

Second issue, I think I might have a slight shopping addiction. Not typical shopping addiction like malls and stuff, although I do like buying clothes. I did notice that most of my personal email is from retail outlets. However, I like to buy life stuff, like cell phones, eye glasses, groceries, furniture, kitchenware, vacations, cars, and real estate. That stuff could get someone in trouble. Am I seeking adulthood? Am I trying to nest? Do I just like the biggest ticket items possible? I think I might be watching too much VH1 The Fabulous Life of...

It's Over! DEAL WITH IT!!!

To go along with my slight shopping addiction, one of my emails today was from Express. The Subject read "Summer's over - Break out the sweaters." I was obviously stunned.

I have been trying to put off the end of summer for as long as possible. As one of my vendors put it, "Catch summer by the tail." I skipped the beginning of the Utes game last week to do summer activities up in Park City. I have continued to wear flip flops. Seconds ago I got off a phone call planning a Lagoon trip for Gods sake. My premise is that just because it is past Labor Day, which was very early in the month this year might I add, that it is going to stay warm for awhile. If that's the case then I am going t keep that summer joie de vivre until it is time for me to don the argyle sweater.

However, I seem to be losing the battle. As soon as Labor Day hit, it seemed to start getting cooler. People's dressing habits are already beginning to change, and talk in our meetings is already about 4th quarter. I've even turned of the air in the car in order to go with the more environmentally friendly windows, and am wearing my glasses more.

It will be fine. Fall and Winter are fun too, and they are always good for fashion. However, usually towards the end of the summer I get to this point where I just wanted the cooler weather to come, only to want the fun and heat of summer as soon as the snow starts to fly. That wasn't the case this year, as I was determined to enjoy all of the beauty of summer. Maybe I should turn that attitude towards the rest of the year.