The Office... I'm over it

I recently began one of those "all important" internships that will skyrocket my legal career... if it does not I am going to file suit against career services for giving me false hope and unreasonable expectations... the scariest part... I could succeed. You've gotta love frivolous claims. Anyway I am now sitting in a cube in an office that doesn't have more than 30 people in it. But it's odd because there is only 1 row of cubes so I only have 2 walls. My chair lines up off center with the office door in front of me, which is occupied by a not unfriendly army veteran who has this gem outside his door. But that is beside the point. The point is that I saw a a lot of traffic going into and out of this office today by the same 2 people. Apparently these 3 were exchanging emails on a project with a 4th undisclosed party regarding an upcoming project. These '3 musketeers' seemed to think that the 4th was incompetent and an all around horrible person. I realize that I have only been working here for a few weeks and I only know 2 people's names but how often have you noticed this happen? Anywhere? People start complaining about someone else's job performance when things are not going smoothly.

I find it hard to believe that when someone is bitching that they know all the complexities and nuances of that person's job. I've done it. But I realized I don't know anything about those jobs that I complain about and I have been trying to not give people a hard time. Like when only 1 teller is working the counter at the bank and the line is huge and there are 5 others in close proximity behind the counter during peak hours. The same is often true for the post office. But unless you have worked in one of these positions in the last few years the chances are you have no idea what is going on. But back to the story at hand. This group of 3 people congregated in the office across from me every single time an email was sent by the 4th person. This happened every 1.5 minutes or so for 2 hours.

I wished I had a stop watch to verify my ballpark guestimate of the total amount of time they spent complaining today. My guess is they spent at least 45 minutes in their group therapy sessions today. Again, I don't know their names, their positions or the difficulty of this project or anything else about it, but it seems like that if they spent 45 minutes problem solving/compromising in a face to face conference with #4 present a meaningful solution could have been devised or at least hatched out. I mean, I mean if they had just properly addressed the issue when it came up it could have avoided later frustration and there might not have been 45 minutes wasted complaining. Just talk it out kids, don't make the office completely inefficient by wasting time and then leaving early. PS my boss has THE life. He is the only attorney i know who makes 6 figures, arrives at 10 am, leaves at 5, dresses extremely casual for an office (not one tie since i started), only reports to the lead in-house attorney, gets to shoot the shit with 3 interns all day and here's the kicker... HE JUST GRADUATED LAW SCHOOL LAST MAY. In his defense he is really smart. Plus I really am enjoying the work... learning how to play the IP game. Respect the game son.

As for my superbowl pick. Indeed, it always seems like we are waiting to see who will win this 5 month race to the finish (front of the bus). Some may say go Cardinals (apple) they've never won one, they're hot and larry fitzgerald is incredible. Others may say go Steelers (orange) because one superbowl isn't enough for Big Ben and the rest of his pennsyltucky ore harvesting crew. I say... Go Zebras (banana)! Because if the Packers aren't playing with favre gun slinging their way to victory... who the hell cares. They don't call it the Lombardi trophy for nothing. And for shame on Freducate. Going to see a concert on this the holiest day of the year. A wag of my finger to you sir. And today I tip my hat tooo... my evidence teacher for canceling class the Friday before spring break.

The Only Way Out

I know its been a while since I posted last, so I'm going to make this one count by talking about what is either the most insane or ingenious idea I've ever had. Probably some mixture of both. While it'll never win me a nobel prize, it just might make me (and you!) the most happy person on the face of the Earth.

Recently I've reached an age where everything around you starts to die. Pets you've had since childhood, beloved gradnparents, the occasional aunt or uncle, etc. I doubt its any coincidence that this tends to happen around the time we begin to become established professionals in our field. It is a real rather than symbolic shedding of our youth, which we have literally now outgrown. Its a simple fact of life that people with gray hair starting to come in rarely have a grandmother doting on them anymore.

I expected all of this and am coming through it just fine. There was, however, one thing I was not prepared for: dying SUCKS. I was lied to all my life and you were too. When I was younger I was told people died of "natural causes" all the time. NO THEY DIDN'T. They suffered weeks and months in hospital beds with people desperately trying to keep them alive while their children wept at their bedsides and their grandchildren (you and I) were sheltered from the experience. Their bodies slowly, painfully decayed whether they were ravaged by cancer or dementia or just normal aging that makes things like bladders and kidneys less functional (and the first part of functional to go is the "fun," let me tell you). No matter what the cause, the result is the same: death by extended pain and torture.

The normal way out of this is to have a living will where you cannot be kept alive in said hospital bed. This doesn't work! There's always one weak kid (since we can't cull the litter anymore...that's another post for another day) who can't stand to see daddy/mommy go and will torture you until you die of it.

That leaves me with only one way out, and here it is: make enemies. The only way to die quickly is to be killed and the only way to be killed is to be involved in a fatal accident or to be murdered. Fatal accidents happen all to infrequently and are, by nature, unpredictable and could happen too soon, so the only choice left is to be murdered. The problem is, I want to live a decently long life, perhaps 70 years or so if I'm lucky, so I don't want this to happen any time soon. On the other hand once you're 70 if you start acting like a complete bastard out of the blue to try and get yourself murdered you're just going to end up in a home on experimental medications for dementia. Also no good.

So here's my solution: The older I get, the more enemies I make. At the fairly young age of 29 I'm not looking to make very many. The more I age, the more of a bastard I'll start to become and the more enemies I'll make. This should hit some critical tipping point and before my body starts to decline, someone will shoot me in the brainstem (I've decided to tell them how best to kill me, if given the opportunity).

While the solution sounds good, there is hidden genius to it. The older I get the less I have to give a shit about what people think! The more enemies I can make, the more I can tell people what dimwitted imbiciles they truly are, and point out everyone's smallest mistakes while I casually search for my car in yet another parking lot. You wonder why that crotchety old man drinking scotch and smoking cigars complains about the entire world with a twinkle in his eyes? Its because he figured it out too.

The other option is, if I can make it to 70 or 80 in incredible physical shape, I'll just put on a skull t-shirt and be like The Punisher played by George Burns. But since I already have a bad back...have I mentioned yet that she left you because she said you suck in bed, and I'm better? Mwaahhahahahah, it begins...

Things That Are Awesome, January 2009 Edition

This is my favorite type of blog post to write, because it's quick-hitting, irreverent, and very difficult to mess up. So without further ado, let's get to it. Our latest installment of things that have struck me as awesome recently...

Airport bars. I suffer from moderately crippling social anxiety. Under most circumstances, I would never be caught dead having a drink by myself at a regular, run-of-the-mill bar. However, airport bars do not apply, because the social norms that apply to the real world don't apply once you've taken your shoes off at a security checkpoint. As an example, everyone at airport bars strike me as unnecessarily friendly (especially when said airport is somewhere in the South). I'm never sure if it's the airport context that makes people friendly, or if only people who are friendly go to airport bars. Regardless, because of this, I end up having surprisingly enjoyable conversations with people whom I'd never otherwise talk to. At a recent stopover in Balt'more, I was educated by a friendly bartender as to the various historical spellings of "Yuengling." This was something I'd never known, and found extremely important. Plus, the buffalo chicken wraps* at airport bars are typically above average. (*NOTE: "buffalo chicken wrap" to appear on a later "Things That Are Awesome" list.)

The fourth and fifth minutes of Radiohead's "Paranoid Android". I am never asked my opinion on the most beautiful moment in alternative rock. This is because I have zero credibility about anything, particularly the things that I think I know a lot about. I've given this particular question years of thought, particularly those times late at night when I can't sleep and end up listening to my iPod. Right before I eventually fall asleep, I end up gravitating toward "Paranoid Android", and I think it's because it contains the most beautiful musical moment in all of alternative rock. This moment lasts approximately two minutes.

The first half of the song is unspectacular if above-average Radiohead, although it's a harder sort of rock than most Radiohead songs. At around 3:30, however, the entire tonality of the song changes. The music changes from driving, harmonic rock to a near Gregorian chant. Thom Yorke's voice changes from man to scepter, and all of a sudden the listener feels everything in the world raining down on them, from a great height. It's a wailing coda, it's darkly beautiful, and it's what I think every piece of emo-rock written over the past decade aspired to but could not be. (*NOTE: In general, I'm not really a Radiohead fan. I can't really converse about Radiohead, the way I could converse about Metallica or Toad the Wet Sprocket. I have five Radiohead songs on my iPod. But, that doesn't keep what I wrote above from being what I believe.)

Skiing. I went skiing for the first time in my life last week. I think it's the most unique sort of physical activity, because it completely shifts one's seasonal- and movement-related paradigms. I don't really like snow. I think it's nice enough the first couple of times it happens in a given winter, but after that it's just an annoyance. I'd just as soon move someplace like North Carolina, where (I think) it only snows a few times a year, than have to deal with snow all the time. All of this is true, except for when I went skiing, at which point I considered snowfall to be the most amazing meteorological phenomenon possible.

It's not that I was a good skiier; I barely got off the bunny slope. But I was amazed at how fast I could move - it was like the bottoms of my feet were slathered in warm butter and I was sent down a hill with my center of balance shifted to about three feet behind my ass. I am unsure how anyone who skis regularly avoids serious spinal cord disfiguration as a function of the awkwardness of skiing. However, I'd gladly do it again.

Obscure "Simpsons" references from 1996 on this blog space. If you don't know what I'm talking about, see the photo from Scottery's post below (re: balls), and the comments section for the post. "Citizen Kang" is, in my opinion, the best Treehouse of Horror short of all time, and I'm thrilled that in this new era of change and hope, we can take the time to reflect on things that made us laugh about Presidents past. Remember, a vote for a third-party candidate is a vote thrown away...

Buffalo chicken wraps. Oh, fuck it, let's talk about it here. I've been on a HUGE Buffalo chicken wrap kick lately - I've had like five of them in the past three weeks, and I'll probably have another one within the next couple of days. It's practically the perfect sandwich. It has tortilla, fried chicken, hot sauce, bleu cheese dressing, lettuce, and tomato. Is there a food group that this sandwich cannot represent??!

(*NOTE: On a somewhat unrelated topic, I had the worst Reuben sandwich of my life yesterday, and it cost me $7 that I'll never get back. The place where I go to graduate school generally has good [if somewhat overpriced] cafeteria food, but I've never had the Reuben before. I was the only person in the panini line, and I saw three candidate Reuben sandwiches in front of me. Two were voluptuous - piled high with delicious corned beef, sauerkraut, and Russian dressing. The third was puny, with maybe two slices of corned beef. After asking for a Reuben, I stared pointedly as the dumb bitch behind the counter silently put the puny Reuben on the panini press. She kept it there for all of 28 seconds, after which she silently [I think she might have been mute, as well as fucking stupid] added potato chips and a sloppy pickle. By the time I got back to my office, the Reuben was ice-cold. I could only finish half the sandwich, before throwing it out. I thought about taking the rest of my ice-cold sandwich back to the dining hall and throwing it back in the sandwich maker's face. I decided against it, of course.

I suppose the quesiton here is, at what point is it necessary to call the Dining services office and complain? If it were a Buffalo chicken wrap, I would have complained already. No question. That's how much I adore the Buffalo chicken wrap. It's fucking sacred.)

****************

Stay classy out there.

Please Stop Saying "Inaugural Balls"

I'm at home today, and I just walked past the TV where one of those morning "news" programs are discussing "fun and inexpensive ways to throw your own inauguration party." Trappings include drinks named after the president-elect (an "Obamatini"), presidential trivia, and a life-size cutout of our new Presidential Overlord. There are also American flags... everywhere.

My feelings about this are pretty mixed. I mean, on the surface, the kind of overwhelming support for the new guy is probably a good thing. There will be less infighting in Congress when new legislation is passed (at least for awhile), and any initiatives he announces will be taken up more quickly than if he'd won with a 50.1% margin. Volunteers and job seekers have flocked to D.C. to be a part of the new administration in numbers that are rarely seen. And these aren't your College Democrats; scientists and lawyers and all sorts of people are applying for jobs in the administration. AND it's not just the elitist northeastern news shows that are all up on his nuts, either, since (according to CNN) six in ten Republicans have a favorable view of Obama.

On the other hand, does "cult of personality" mean anything to anyone? It seems like the populist media (not the "news" media, which is pretty even-handed) is playing to the high poll numbers by discussing whether Obama is "Amazing" or "Awesome," but since most people formulate their opinions through populist media, it definitely puts an image in people's minds that is difficult to shake. If the image of female anchors on "Good Morning, America" hanging all over cardboard cutouts of the new president doesn't give you pause, well... it should.

Now, there's a huge difference between the cult of personality in history (see: go-to examples of evil dictators) and what's going on now: namely, that Obama has (relatively) nothing to do with the unrelenting showering of praise. In America, despite what a lot of people think, the press is free to say whatever they want about politicians. The catch-22 is that the press also wants to say what people want to hear, so that papers get sold and websites get hit and media gets consumed. Thus, if people are hating on Bush, then the media has a lot of Bush-hating stories. The stories are true, of course, but they don't present a whole picture, since there's a lot of things Bush has done which don't suck (AIDS funding, for example). Conversely, media coverage of Obama has been pretty positive, because people have a high opinion of him (and not because of coercion of the media outlets, which is a big difference). But there are a bunch of things (retraction of FISA during the campaign,

Now, I'm an Obama supporter. I think it would be a little cynical to suggest that the only reason he gets positive press is because of his popularity. He seems to be making swift moves to put a lot of his campaign talk into action; at least, as much as he can without being president. In the next few weeks we'll see how much of it has been posturing and how much will be real. Until then, everyone should keep their heads.

(Side note: CNN.com's front page, at 9:30 AM, has the requisite set of news stories talking about the inauguration and the significance of this year's MLK day. And then there's a story whose title reads, "Going With The Flow: Learn why people tend to go along with the majority view, even when it's wrong." I can't make this stuff up.)

(Side note #2: After Israel and Hamas decided to fuck the shit out of Gaza, people observed that they were probably getting their last licks in before Bush leaves office. I thought that was a little silly, but if you're someone who espoused that view, another headline on CNN reads: "Israel: We'll exit Gaza by time Obama sworn in." Seriously.)

An Ode to the Brick City

So as my name suggests I am from Jersey... born and raised. I'm currently living in the largest city in the Dirty Jerz... Newark... BRICK CITY! Now I know you may be thinking that the larger the city the more homicides. I'm here to tell you that we lost that race to Camden. Way to go you little over achiever you. I moved in about 18 months ago and shortly after I saw a billboard that announced how many days the city went without a shooting... we maxed out at 33. I also noticed that I wasn't really able to walk more than 10ft without tripping over a homeless person or being asked for change from someone else on the street. The first couple of times I was asked I gave change to those that asked for it when I had it, because, despite the fact I'm in law school, I'm not completely heartless. I find no problem in helping people that are legitimately hungry, but there are also those that will promptly use the money for cigarettes/booze/drugs. I soon developed a litmus test for those that are seeking money for illicit reasons.

1. They begin their pitch with "Can I talk to you a minute..."
2. or incorporate "My mother just died and I need money to buy a train
ticket..."
3. "I'm not a bum" --> then you're a crackhead
4. They walk by past a crowd of people but only ask the white
people for money... if you were really hungry you would ask everyone
5. They persist trying to get money from you after you offer them the
address of a shelter that offers a meal and a bed for the night

The psychology of this impressed me, because who couldn't sympathize with someone that lost their mother. But when you hear that 10 people in a 1 block radius had mothers that died in like 3 days I'm sorry but I would like to speak with your crackhead union officials that gave you this line so that I can call shenanigans. They don't even work to perfect the argument, because once I realized what was going on I began to mess with them. "Oh that's terrible, what did she die from?" If they manage to answer I just keep bombarding them with follow up question after follow up question, inventing sub-categories of the disease to get them to admit the are lying. Even used car dealers develop their sales pitch to sell you that 1990 POS you just bought. You may say that I am cruel for putting them through this, but by this point in the pitch I have directed them to a shelter for food/place to sleep and said I have no change on me. I usually don't have any change on me anyway because everything at school is really overpriced and I try not to buy anything there, if I have to I use my credit card and this actually serves a dual purpose on top of not wasting money, it also allows me to answer truthfully to the fact that I don't have any change on me when approached in the street.

Also, I am currently living off loan money that I receive at about 8,000,000% interest so that .25 or whatever it is that you think I can spare for this person who is down on their luck, or off of their high, when it comes time to pay back my loan, will cost me about $3.50. I refuse to feel bad when you know damn well that you would not give out paper money to someone on the street. This is not a case of borrowing money, I'll never get it back, and if I caved to everyone that asked me for money in Newark i would not be able to pay my tuition. If someone actually walked up to me and said "hey can I have $5 so that I can get I high" I would give it to them as a reward for their honesty. I also think that the CU (Crackhead Union) has assigned its members the corners upon which they ask for money, so that when the professionals leave their building for lunch they can conveniently dispose of their change after buying their food. I, however, do not have income, only debt accruing, rapidly. I cannot afford to give change to the same 5 people every day on my way to and from school.

I have also recently learned that there is a 0 tolerance policy for people caught dealing drugs in the "downtown" area of Newark, which consists of the area between broad street and Newark Penn Station (my apt, school and the prudential center), and promises a trip to the emergency room before they go to the holding cell. So the drug dealers, like lions hiding in the tall grass to stalk the gazelle, stand at the bus stops camouflaging themselves with the people who actually are waiting for the bus on broad street, buttressing themselves up against the border but not daring to cross it, not unlike the Hamsterdam set up in "The Wire." I'm sure by now the police have noticed that the same 5-10 guys are standing at the bus stop all day, when every bus for that stop has passed several times over. When I am forced to walk in that area I'm asked if I am "up" several times and all I can say is "There is a cop not 50 ft from you directing traffic, what are you thinking?" This was the essence of Hamsterdam in the show, stay in these low impact areas without being violent and you can do whatever else you like with impunity. All I know is that tomorrow when Newark riots down broad street, in celebration of Obama's inauguration, the dealers and the crackheads both will either get trampled or have a feeding frenzy on their hands. So good luck to Corey Booker in continuing to improve Newark and hail to our newly elected Overlord Obama.

On "Miracles" and the 24-Hour News Cycle

3:30 PM, Thursday, January 15, 2009, Manchester Airport, Manchester, New Hampshire, USA.

When I'm able to, I always fly on Southwest Airlines. They have above-average seat room, they offer free soda and peanuts, and - best of all - they have an open seating policy. In a brilliant business move reminiscent of true capitalism, Southwest fliers who print their boarding pass online reserve a seat in line (in the order in which they sign online and print the pass). Because I'm a neurotic flyer, and have a thinly-veiled fear of dying in a horrific plane crash, I always sign online as quickly as possible to reserve an early seat in line. This always puts me in the "A" group, which boards first and puts me in my lucky seat (7C, on the left aisle side, right next to the engine on the Boeing 737-500).

At this precise moment, however, I am waiting to board a flight to Jacksonville, Florida, alongside 50 other nervous passengers, silently watching a horrific scene on the airport terminal's large TV. It appears that a commercial airliner, a US Airways jet flying from LaGuardia to Charlotte, NC (a flight I once took myself, a few years back), had crashed into the Hudson River. The crash resulted in killing everyone on board, I am certain. When airplanes crash land into water - especially when they crash land into 33 degree water, with the air temperature in the mid-teens - nobody ever survives this sort of thing. This is absolute fact.

The passengers around me seem to think along the same lines that I do, because they are grim and absolutely silent. The dude in front of me nervously scans his BlackBerry for news, but out of some macabre mixture of politeness and not wanting to know what happened, I don't peer over his shoulder for the death count. At this moment, I am ready to fly. I am certain that I no longer fear my own death by airplane. No way this happens twice in one day.

What I do upon boarding the plane is text message my Mom. This is funny, because Moms don't usually text message. But my Mom does, and I text her to let her know (a) there's been a horrible plane crash in the Hudson river, and (b) I was not on board that particular plane. This is important, because if my Mom were to turn on the TV news at any point while I am in the air, she would immediately think her son died - in the way he always imagined.

This is important also because I'm the sort of person who craves facts. I ask her how bad the crash was. Before the plane takes off, I find out there are no fatalities. I text back "WOW", and soon I'm instructed to turn off my cell phone. Before my plane landed safely in Jacksonville, I sip two Diet Cokes and read GQ.

*******************************************

Other people, far more eloquent than I, have already condemned modern society's reliance upon tragic sob stories in order to reveal our individual, concealed feelings. I won't parrot these remarks. Nobody needs to know where I was on 9/11, because it isn't important. The story that I just wrote, though, makes me a hypocrite. Because, just like on 9/11 when we all capitalized on horror to make ourselves seem human, I think that a simple "miraculous" plane crash is allowing us to capitalize on hope to do the exact same thing.

What I'm focusing on now is the near-constant news coverage of this "miraculous" event. In doing so, I don't want to understate how amazing it was that nobody died in the plane crash. Over a hundred people are waking up today having thought they were going to die, but having actually lived. These people are going to treat their kids, spouses, and coworkers better, and they're going to have a story for the rest of their lives (one that will certainly get a few of the passengers laid, and more power to them).

But, so far as news stories go, it's as exciting as that one time I had Ace-King suited and flopped four of a kind Aces. Actually, it's just like that one time I flopped four of a kind Aces. All the requisite skill was there. The pilot knew what he was doing and landed the plane perfectly so that it wouldn't sink. All the requisite luck was there. The engine failed at just the right time such that the plane could crash-land in a highly populated river, close to ferries and rescue boats. The statistical context was there - the laws of physics said that a successful crash landing in water was at least theoretically possible (even though planes that ditch in the water usually tend to sink).

Because of this, the amount of news this "miracle" generated made me wonder. It made me wonder whether all this crap with the economy in crisis, people losing their jobs left and right, etc., is starving us for good news. The people who decide what goes on the news are human and therefore biased, no matter how objective they think they are. They've likely had a really rough year, and there's little doubt in my mind that yesterday's "miracle" became The News of the New Year because we're all rooting for everything to turn out all right.

I'm visiting my dad in Florida this weekend, and he was so excited about the news this morning that he TiVo'd one full hour of the "Today" show's plane crash footage. (NOTE: I think that earlier this morning, the "Today" show devoted its' entire four hours to yesterday's plane crash.) My dad, like many Americans, has lost a third of his nest egg within the past four months. Like many Americans, my dad is completely pissed off about this fact. Regardless, he was actually excited to watch the news this morning. So even though I'm a Godless curmudgeon and I do not believe in miracles, I suppose good news counts for something these days.

Stay classy out there.

In Defense of Unused Entertainment: An Ode to Bookshelves

Recently, I started cleaning my domicile. But this isn't regular cleaning: the goal is to reduce the number of objects I have in my everyday life so that when I eventually move again, I have fewer things to bring. Getting rid of old clothes, old computer parts, and so forth. But one thing I cannot reconcile is getting rid of my books. I have two bookshelves filled to the brim, and that's not counting ones lined along the floor or piled up in corners. I could probably start a small library with the number of books I've collected.

Some of these books haven't been read all the way through, and some I haven't even read at all. So naturally, when I mention that I'm cleaning, I draw fire from several angles (mother, significant other, significant-other-in-law) all of whom immediately -- not unlike HITLER -- target my book collection for exile to the attic or, worse, the trash. And I can't bring myself to do it. My brother is also facing criticism regarding his own book collection, and from this exceedingly small sample size and my own mild sexism, I have formed the following statement: Women do not understand the importance of a large collection.

Sure, the bookshelf may look like it's taking up a lot of unnecessary room, and it's stocked with things you've either already read or will never read, both of which indicate that the book does not belong in your possession. But that's missing the larger point: The bookshelf is a much-needed avenue for self-expression and evaluation. It takes a lot of time to build up a good bookshelf, and the reason is that each book you add to the shelves constitutes an individual act in your life. At one point or another, you made a conscious decision to buy or accept the book, and add it to your shelf. Thus, a bookcase represents a compilation of all the passing interests of your life. My own bookshelf has a number of topics, from psychology to politics to engineering and robotics, and even a few about gardening and cooking, all coordinated to particular phases or interests that I've had over the years. The bookshelf is a public expression of that history. It's something to be proud of: when people see your collection, they can see what kind of things you either have been or are currently interested in. They see what you know, or what you would like to know in the future, and in so doing, they know a little bit more about you as a person. This isn't a Facebook or Myspace profile that you slapped together in an "Oh, I bet I'll seem interesting if I say I like this!" moment, this is a pillar of your life meticulously constructed over several years, financed with real money-dollars (or some crafty book-stealing).

A common complaint is, "But you've never even read this! Why keep it if you're never going to open it?" See, that's the great thing about the bookshelf: it's not just a compilation of history, it's a set of possibilities for the future. Again, the purchase of a book indicates an interest. Maybe I don't have time for it now, but it says that at some point, I would like to add this to the list of books I have read. It's a direction in which I would like to grow; maybe not now, maybe not ever, but the shelf is as much about possibilities as history.

The same argument can be adopted for a movie collection. How many of us look with pride at our collection of DVDs, movie box sets, television series, and straight-to-DVD-movies-nobody-had-ever-heard-of? The box art, the plastic, the arrangement of the obelisk of entertainment all contribute to a collection that was slowly built up over the years, each piece added by you. Just imagine if some wild-eyed harpy decided that your DVD collection was taking up precious cubic footage (or yardage, in which case, bravo) and condemned it to die a slow, dusty death compacted into a lifeless, opaque DVD wallet, to be shoved under the coffee table, never to be seen again.

Fuck that! Your DVDs, your books, and your CDs should all be on prominent display. When people come over your home and see your collection, their attention should be drawn to it. They should feel compelled to peruse your selections, to make a connection through an obscure book or movie or CD. They should feel the bitter pangs of envy that they have spent so little time creating their own bookshelf. But even if nobody has ever seen it, even if you never have company over, the fact remains: Your collection is yours.

Be proud of your bookshelf, and in so doing, be proud of yourself.

Greetings from Winter Break

::takes shirt off, flashes:: WOOO HOOO!!!!!!

Ahem... sorry about that. Wrong break, apparently. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.

I suppose that, in my own way, I work very hard at what I do. As you know, my job title is "Professional Student." I call myself this because, since 1989, I've taken a grand total of one year away from academia - this was, in many ways, a horrible year of my life. I found that I craved structure, but hated being bossed around. I realized that I respected the bottom line, but hated corporate babble-speak and generalized bullshit. Further, I came to understand that I didn't want a salary that peaked in the low six figures.

Hence, I applied to - and, by a mixture of incredible luck and poor judgment on the parts of others - was accepted into graduate school for Social Psychology. Graduate school has confirmed that I am (a) a good student, (b) technically savvy, and (c) perfectly capable of waking up at 10:00 AM every morning, even though I am 25 years old and most people my age have grown-up work and grown-up problems to deal with.

No, seriously. I am now at an age where lots of my peers are fucking PARENTS. With regard to the above statement, allow me to explain something to you. I am a responsible adult who pays his bills on time. I've never been arrested, and I don't even hold a balance on my credit cards. I'm a good student and, within the next 36 months, I will finish school and immediately begin to earn a salary that exceeds my every expectation. But there is no FUCKING way that I am even close to borderline FUCKING capable of the responsibility that comes with being a parent.

I like to drink alcohol. Somewhat consistently, I like to drink too much alcohol. Just as consistently, I like to bring my girlfriend with me to drink too much alcohol. When the Giants played the Packers in the NFC Championship Game last January, I drank enough alcohol to kill an Asian family of three. At my age, and because I don't have any kids, doing what I like to do is considered by others to be harmless; I'm "just enjoying my twenties." (NOTE: Even when I spend the entire next day alternately vomiting and screaming "GGGGGG-MEN!")

Now, throw a living newborn post-fetus into the equation. All of a sudden, I would need papal dispensation in order to get legitimately, shit-faced drunk, even on special occasions. All of a sudden, I'm no longer "just enjoying my twenties". Now I'm an alcoholic with a stained, sweaty wife beater and the Department of Youth and Family Services knocking on my front door.

My point is that having this particular responsibility is stupid, and this is why stupid people in this country are the ones having all the children. We're at the point where being truly responsible means not having any kids (or at the very least, waiting a damned long time to have kids). To illustrate this paradox, let's take Couple A. We'll call them Wade and Tawny. Wade and Tawny combine for 27 teeth and one GED. They live in a double-wide somewhere in the Deep South, 20 miles from the nearest person who voted for Obama.

Here's Couple B. (I'm not going to give this couple a name; you probably know 150 people like Couple B, dear reader, so you can come up with whatever names you see fit.) They are both college-educated, both work full-time, and they have a mortgage and two car payments. They both go to school at night for their respective Master's degrees. My question, and this is an easy question to answer, is: Who has more children, Couple A or Couple B?


OF COURSE it's Couple A, you toad-shitting nitwit. Couple A probably has three times as many kids as Couple B, and if you ask me, it's a damned shame. They have more kids because they're not using birth control, because they don't care about their careers, because they're on welfare. Couple B is responsible in a real way, and because they're responsible they're not procreating to have wonderful, intelligent children. In general, this sucks.

At this point, you might be thinking that I'm an asshole (or, even better, someone who favors eugenics). My answer to your line of reasoning is, yes, I am an asshole. And when you really think about it, as long as you're not killing people, forcing smart people to breed and forcing stupid people to be neutered or spayed (like dogs) isn't all that horrible of an idea. (NOTE: In a very under the surface sort of way, that last sentence was the most controversial thing I've ever written.)

If you're a moralist, you may now be asking, "What/who decides whether a person is stupid?" To answer the "who" question, it's going to be the people who write on this blog. (You'd better not piss any of us off. We are judge, jury, and the executioner of your reproductive organs.) To answer the "what" question, I figure we'll go with a standard IQ test plus an informal interview over coffee or baked goods.

***************************************

Since it's a Friday night and I'm writing a goddamned blog post, I might as well throw down the gauntlet and confess that I'm a pretty big loser. To that end, here's some of the entertainment I've been enjoying lately.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Without a doubt, the funniest comedy since Seinfeld. I love the gallows humor, I love that nothing's off-limits. The writing and acting are fantastic (The McPoyle twins, pictured above, are absolutely repulsive in every way imaginable, to the point that I think the show's writers ration their appearances). Surprisingly, the blonde babe with fantastic comedic timing is married to the ugly dude, "Mac", in real life (NOTE: For some reason - perhaps my own latent chauvinism - hardly any other women have comedic timing. This is why men are much, much funnier than women, and it makes absolutely no sense).

Dexter. Psychologically intense, this show makes you actually root for a serial killer. To be honest, I've always sorta rooted for the bad guys in movies. Remember in "Goodfellas" when Ray Liotta's character (in voiceover) refers to Robert DeNiro's character as "the sort of guy who roots for the bad guys in movies", as if this were the worst character trait imaginable? I suppose this was tongue-in-cheek, since anyone who loves "Goodfellas" by definition loves to root for bad guys in movies. Still, nonetheless, wouldn't the following description for DeNiro's character be better: "Demonistic serial killer who enjoys watching the people he murders for personal gain slowly die"?

Degrassi: The Next Generation. You have to put on "The N" to watch this show, but you will be rewarded. (NOTE: "The N" is the Nickelodeon teen network, for those of you who are neither "Degrassi" fans nor about to show up on Dateline NBC.) DG:TNG (I've always wanted to use that for something that isn't Star Trek) is a Canadian teen drama, and BOY is there drama. Everything from school shootings, to teen pregnancy, identity issues, crime, sex, drugs, you name it, is on this show. They use a large ensemble cast - no other show I've seen besides "The Wire" does this so well - every character has a story line and... well, issues with growing up.

Some other, random, awesome tidbits about "Degrassi": (1) Because the show is Canadian and produced for a native audience, there are some things that seem slightly out of place. For instance, everyone loves hockey, there's a lot of snow, and many of the main characters are afraid of the dark. In addition, people speak in Canadian accents, if ya know what I'm talkin' aboot. (2) "Clerks" director and fellow Middletown, NJ-ian Kevin Smith is a huge fan of the show, to the point where he and Jay appeared on several DG:TNG episodes to produce the fictional "Jay and Silent Bob Go Canadian, Eh?" movie. Awesome stuff, and definitely something you should watch.

******************************

OK, I'm off to shoot a Yeti and club a few baby seals now. BRRRR, it's cold out there. (NOTE: Actually, this is untrue. New Jersey has two, completely different climates. The northern and western parts of the state are in one climate, which is characterized by cold, snowy winters and warm summers. The southern and eastern parts of the state are in another climate, which has cool, rainy winters and hot summers. I'm in the "rainy winters, hot summers" climate, which is awesome in the summer but sucks in the winter. Oh, well, it beats Massachusetts.)

Stay classy out there.