Party of One

Black Friday and the Crazies

Fri, 3 Dec 2010 11:22:08 -0600

It was a mixed bag this year for Black Friday. The wife and I made the 1,200-mile trek to Baton Rouge for Thanksgiving and found that Baton Rouge has been replaced with madness.
Madness and craziness, I guess, is what happens when I deny this fine city my presence. But you people’s craziness just was magnified this past month when we came down to visit with family on Black Friday.
We started out with a popular toy store that’s pimping itself out on the corner of Florida and Airline like a sorority dropout. For fear of my life, I won’t mention its name, but let’s say this toy store made me choose “us” rather than toys.
We showed up for its sale and noticed the line wrapped 360 degrees around the building and down the street for about another quarter mile. All for toys. It looked like LSU was going to play Auburn for a rematch in the parking lot with the amount of insane parking, bad parking, and traffic-blocking morons that filled the street.
What happened to civility in this town when it comes to shopping? What happened to looking like a normal person when shopping? It was embarrassing for me as a human being to see others dressed in matching Black Friday T-shirts. Don’t be that guy who wears the band’s shirt to the concert.
Besides, if you are trying to save money, then why in God’s name would you waste money on a T-shirt that you can only wear one day a year? And to have it personalized with your name?
I’m going to deny you and your team at every corner. Not just the toys your group is trying to get, but you aren’t getting around my basket in the aisle on principle. I believe that level of stupid should be punished.
Not to mention that you are already in your forties, yet dressing like your teenage daughter. I understand that you need to still have your bob haircut, but I don’t think, at your age, that it’s appropriate for you to have what I call the skunk hair. I don’t think it’s very attractive when ex-sorority girls roam the city with multicolored highlights.
If you are reading this, and your hair has five different shades of blonde that you paid gobs of money for, then you should stop. You already have the man and the kids. You can stop trying to act like you need to go to your sorority meeting each week. I just pray that you don’t make T-shirts for your weekly book club meetings. I know that you can never stop making the party cups.
What do people need from these toy stores at 10 p.m. on Thanksgiving when their kids are teenagers? Not only teenagers, but the teenagers that like to dress and act like future bar hags of Tigerland. What toys do they need? I figured they would be out at Best Buy or the mall, getting clothes and electronics.
At least they made me smile when they walked in past me and the wife and asked for a dry basket. This was after the freezing-cold rain set in and they had passed all the empty baskets on the way in. I held out hope that one of them would also ask for all the toys she needed so she wouldn’t have to shop with the commoners.
But all and all, we had a successful run in the big town to get all of our Christmas gifts, but it was a painful reminder of why we live in a rural, cold area of the country. It was hot, sticky, and you people still drive like the roads were built just for you, the traffic lights are optional, and the speed limits are just a suggestion. But I guarantee that it’s a far better trip than letting the TSA check Big John and the Twins for my hidden weapon.

Exploding Cows and the Internet

Fri, 5 Nov 2010 10:05:01 -0500

The internet, developed by Al Gore to aid in the search of ManBearPig and once the home to dateless, virgin computer nerds who shared secrets on how to win at Dungeons & Dragons, now seems to be the only connection to friends most people have. However, since its inception, the internet has devolved to become a bastion of mouthbreathers and knuckledraggers who think that anything they see or read online is not only true, but trumps anything you find in those dusty, old, paper thingies that grouchy, horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing cat women protect and defend in their book houses where the homeless go to potty.
I need to clear the air on some subjects.
Krakatau is a volcano in the Ring of Fire, not Italy. The one you are thinking of is Vesuvius. No amount of “fact checking” on any website in the whole of the internet is going to change that. World Book Encyclopedia told me so.
Second, I live at the headwaters of the Rio Grande. The “valley” I live in is as flat as a board and is the size of the state of Vermont. I actually live in a closed basin; Saguache Creek flows to within about 10 miles of my house and dries up, mainly because it’s alpine desert region.
At 7,550 feet elevation, it will take an act of God, the likes of which makes Noah and his ark look like a crazy man in a dinghy, for my house to flood. I don’t need flood insurance. I don’t care what the internet says, I don’t care what you learned in your week of training at the University of Dead Birdy, and I certainly don’t care what your opinions are. It’s not going to flood.
How do I know? My boss, with forty-something years of water engineering and experience in his family from before Colorado was a state in matters of water flow in the San Luis Valley. Now sit down, shut up, and learn that Xbox is not a profession but a hobby.
Next on my rant are those people that see a video and run with it. The special effects and computer animation can make anything possible. But as long as it’s on YouTube, I guess it’s true. I can only imagine the army of computer techs scanning each individual video for truthiness, accuracy, and neutral statement.
So when someone comes to me stating the “fact” that ground meat comes from overfeeding cows until they explode, I can only laugh at him and mark him on my list of people that shouldn’t breed. I can visualize free-range cows roaming west Texas, exploding at random, then a group of cowboys reaching in and scooping out 400 pounds of prime ground round. That seems plausible, just like the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, or the aliens that built the secret bunker under Tiger Stadium and are controlling the Les Miles robot so they can carefully take over the world.
I’m just gonna guess and say that the people that put that video online had an anti-meat agenda and wanted to scare poor rubes, like yourself, into thinking that meat producers torture cows. It’s just not true, although I think there is a video showing how they pull the toenails out of naughas when they harvest their hides, and that just has to be true.
It’s painful to see that the internet has turned into the sewage-infested hellhole that once was only reserved for the men’s room in Middleton Library. I sometimes enjoy getting global news 24/7 from the web, but the sad realization is that, now that everyone has a blog, news is now a blurred line between truth and what someone writes on her blog or tweet or status on Facebook.
It truly is a shame that, as the global community gets smaller and smaller because of technology, the morons seem to be the ones with the loudest voices, and the other morons take what they say and run with it as truth. It’s just another reason I’ve moved to the middle of nowhere.

White House Finally Ends Global Warming

Fri, 1 Oct 2010 16:21:36 -0500

The aspen groves have shed their light-green leaf color for a more daring burnt orange as the days have begun to shorten. The mountains just yesterday started taking their white hue as the first snow dusting began above the tree line. The sun, as if it were finally tired from being on display in the sky every day during the summer, now seems to be waking later and going to bed earlier and earlier. Even the farmers out here are working night and day to bring in their harvest before it’s too late. All of this can only add up to one logical conclusion: global climate disruption!!!
That’s right, I said it. I have no doubt about it now. If White House science adviser John Holdren touts that global warming is over and the new term to describe the weather is now global climate disruption, then it must be true.
Stories of lipstick and pigs come to mind when the executive branch of our country comes out to announce that climate change has been renamed. I’m just glad that the president has taken care of North Korea, Iran and their nuclear problem, domestic and international terrorism, unemployment, the upcoming catastrophic housing market bubble caused by banks, and the uncontrollable spending of local, state, and federal governments. I’m so glad that his administration had enough free time on its hands that the global worries of rising seas, ozone holes, rising and falling temperatures, incoming ice ages, hurricanes, and cow flatulence could all be fixed one sunny afternoon on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by assigning it all the one vague term of global climate disruption.
Where is the base data for this? What is the normal global climate? Is it from 10,000 years ago, before man created the end of the last large ice age by starting fires (releasing greenhouse gases) and killing off the wooly mammoth? Is the base after the fall of the Roman Empire, back when England had a more tropical climate with vineyards covering the island? Was it back in the Dark Ages (during the little ice age)?
It was cooler today than yesterday, so which one marked the global climate disruption? I just wish the White House could help me out and make it all safe again, and maybe tax me to boot for helping ruin the planet with my sordid questions.
Growing up, we had a scapegoat for all of the things that happened around the house. Mr. Nobody seemed to always be there to eat the last cookie, set the yard on fire, run through the house with mud on his shoes, and put holes in the wall. I see that Mr. Nobody has graduated and is giving life lessons to the White House science adviser.
I can see it now:

The following have been deemed global climate disruptions:
hurricanes,
blizzards,
earthquakes,
mudslides,
humidity,
rain,
sleet,
snow,
the Saints winning the Super Bowl,
the sun rising,
Aron Newton Wright,
the sun setting,
fall,
winter,
iPhones,
spring,
two-ply toilet paper,
summer,
full moons,
the Democrats losing control of Congress in November,
rising seas,
tides,
ozone holes,
new moons,
cow flatulence,
Red Shtick Magazine,
Fox News,
the ice caps melting,
new ice ages beginning,
volcanoes,
Burning Man,
Nick Saban,
the tea party,
Lindsay Lohan, and,
most importantly, your momma.

It’s just what I need as I start fall — a reason to hide under my covers and worry about how the weather is forever scarring the earth due to my own personal choices. Oh, well, at least it’s warm under my covers and my fireplace is red-hot from all the Styrofoam and baby seals I’m burning in it.

Monday Nights on the Boob Tube

Fri, 3 Sep 2010 09:38:49 -0500

I’ve decided this month to swear off TV.
It’s not that it rots my brain, or distracts me from communicating with the wife, or even that it prevents me from going outside and being sociable. It’s the goop that they put on TV nowadays that makes me want to hide in the crawlspace with a tinfoil hat on, waiting for the end of the world.
I have to start with the brain rot they put out on ABC Family. I know that ABC Family is owned by ABC, which is owned eventually by Disney, the creator of wholesome and entertaining shows, and the pimp of such rising stars as Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, and Lindsay Lohan.
The Wright household has maintained a tradition on Monday nights for years now where we watch ABC Family’s The Secret Life of the American Teenager. It should be renamed Everyone Gets Laid. Everyone, Including the Dog.
It started off as a show about a high school freshman who got knocked up at band camp (everything seems to happen at band camp nowadays) and her life at school. It has since digressed into the baby daddy hooking up with her neighbor, a holy-roller teen who loses her virginity, her brother who has Down syndrome (who got more action as a freshman in high school than I did in my many years of high school), and a supporting cast of characters whose only goal is to fornicate like the continuation of the species is dependent on it.
I think my limit has been reached as the boyfriend of the girl with the kid knocks up said girl’s baby daddy’s girlfriend. It’s like teenage Jerry Springer without the Livingston Parish.
The only redeeming part of the show is that it has the rodeo clown makeup woman from The Drew Carey Show and Molly Ringwald, although Molly has aged and reminds me that I, too, am aging like milk.
But made-up drama can’t hold a candle to The Real Housewives of New Jersey, another of the wife’s vices that I watch with utter disgust.
This show revolves around a housewife named Danielle who, despite a seedy past (something with stripping and Columbia drug cartels), seems to think that she is the universal victim and has to overcompensate for being “picked on.” There is only one side with her — her side. The rest of the housewives on the show try to live their over-the-top lives like normal, until Hurricane Danielle comes sweeping by when she doesn’t have attention.
It is truly like a car wreck on I-10 that you just have to slow down to gawk at, even though you know you’re the reason traffic is backed up for 20 miles. It’s just that bad.
At least, in other reality shows, someone can get kicked off the show and life goes on. Danielle is like the roach that won’t die on this show. I highly recommend watching her if you feel bad about yourself. At least you aren’t her.
As if one show highlighting the wonders of the Garden State weren’t enough, we also have Jersey Shore. Thank God, I haven’t seen an episode, but the morons that are on it seem to make it onto the news outlets that I frequent, which sucks, mainly because I work hard to avoid seeing news about Snooki.
Really, Snooki? Barack Obama really didn’t pass a tanning tax just to piss you off. He did it to piss me off. Now I have to hear about it from you when I’m flipping channels.
I’m just glad TV is showing me where to go if I want to experience future strippers and their juiced-out boyfriends, or where to go to see crazed housewives. No wonder the wind blows so hard in New York — it sucks that much in Jersey.
I’m sure that, somewhere in the several hundred channels that are offered to me, there is that one channel that won’t rot my brain so fast. Maybe the answer lies in my getting off my massively expanding ass and moving around more. Maybe the more stupid elements of society that we glamorize in these shows will go away if we just ignore them. Maybe, but only if they stop breeding, too.

My Grandmother and Envie

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 16:31:38 -0500

My grandmother is a wise woman. Her birthday is next month, and although I’m not allowed to say the O-L-D word around her, I’ll just say that she was born during WWI and has been collecting Social Security longer than I’ve been alive. So she is the one to blame if we run out of money in that particular pot.
She’s been having a rather bad year this year, complicated by the fact that her driver’s license needs to be renewed next month. But she is always cheerful and was especially glad to see us when we visited in May.
On one of our recent trips back to the motherland that is Houma, she taught us a new Cajun word — envie (awn-V). She describes it as a want, a need, a desire. It’s more of a longing for then an envy for. It’s more of a pregnant woman’s desire for pickles and ice cream than my want of Bill Gates’ bank account.
Like any grandmother that wants to spoil her grandchild, she insisted that we indulge in our envie during our first trip back home after being gone for a year.
As usual, our cravings, our envies, included staples that, living in Louisiana, one would take for granted. We indulged in what was left of the gulf shrimp, crawfish, and other meals.
We brought back sacks of red beans, and I can honestly say we now possess the largest supply of stockpiled Community Coffee north of Louisiana. If the entire state of Louisiana is wiped out by a storm or global warming, we have enough Community Coffee to rebuild the state here in south Colorado. Just bring beignets and boudin balls.
What I ended up longing for, craving for, was to be more like my grandmother in my relationships in my life.
We came to visit her in late May and visited my grandfather, who was in the last stages of Alzheimer’s. But she went every day she could to see him. She even went so far as to bring his favorite candy to bribe him for kisses if he was having a forgetful day.
The most heart-wrenching moment came when it was time for her to leave, and my grandfather would ask, like a little kid off to his first day to school, if he could go home with her. I can’t imagine the inner strength it takes to tell your lifelong partner that he has to stay in the nursing home and go home without him. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, or even family members.
I guess it wasn’t the long, happy life of 91 years that I longed for, but a wife of 60-something years that would visit me even if I didn’t know who she was.
Don’t get me wrong; a long, happy life of 91 years would be nice. I would get to find out, thanks to the Warren Commission, who really killed JFK. I’m still betting on aliens.
I would get to see if Al Gore and his cronies are right about global warming. I would get to see (maybe) this current bailout by the government finally paid off. I might even get to see all the oil cleaned out of the gulf.
But I would trade all of that for a good wife, like my grandmother, who spent her life making my grandfather feel like the most important guy in the world. My wife has some big shoes to fill.
Father Time finally caught up with my grandfather on June 12. But I’ve been told his envie was to gather his family, which had scattered like roaches when you turn the lights on, for one last time. He got his wish, although he wasn’t there to see us all.
My grandmother would want you to know that he was an avid LSU fanatic. We all miss him tremendously, but not as much as my grandmother misses him.
Hug a family member, for you do not know the next time you might see him; eat seafood like it’s the last you’ll ever taste; and flip off that moron cutting you off, because you never know if you’ll get the chance to piss him off again (unless you drive home via the interstate every afternoon, in which case you will see him most weekdays, again and again).
Life’s way, way too short to not satiate a craving, because before you know it, you will be gone, or that opportunity might have passed you by.
But don’t fret, Houma and Thibodaux; she did get her eyes corrected so she can get that coveted driver’s license renewal. Your sidewalks are once again safe. Although, at that age, the expiration date on your license is less of a reminder and more of a goal. One I certainly hope she makes.

Ink on Your Crack

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 20:37:59 -0500

Love is in the air. I can smell it.
Or maybe that is burning juniper and chico bushes from the national forest as it lights up the night sky just east of my house.
Either way, it is time to evaluate why it is some girls just can’t find love, or Mr. Right, or both.
That’s right, I said girls. The women know what they are doing.
The girls are the ones from 18-25 that go out partying three or four nights a week, have menial jobs that they hang onto until Mr. Right comes around to save them, and think clothes and drinking are more important than paying for trivial things like health insurance, gas, food, and anything mommy or daddy can cover while they “find themselves.” These girls usually have that branding that makes finding that perfect guy almost impossible — the tramp stamp.
There are no two identical tramp stamps in the world. I should know; I’ve checked them all. Girls have no problem showing them off. It’s like a rite of passage nowadays.
Here where I live, there were about a half-dozen tramp stamps at the pool. Too bad they were all under 16 years old. I hope they like “Juicy” and snake eyes tatted on their backs for the rest of time.
These markings usually fall under a handful of categories:
Words. “Juicy,” “Lucky,” <your name here> are some of the more popular words.
I personally love the name as a tramp stamp. Makes it easier to confuse her by calling her by name and reminding her of the time we hooked up at the club last spring. Enough vague details and she will spend the rest of the week trying to recall the drunken romp with the live armadillos and motor oil in Tiger Stadium.
The “juicy” girl will one day have to explain why her back is juicy to her five-year-old daughter.
Chinese letters. Do you speak Chinese? Can you point to China on the map? Then how the hell do you know what is imprinted for all time on your back?
Sure, the Chinese alphabet is fascinating, with the brush strokes and artistry, but what does it really mean? As far as I am concerned, it doesn’t read “hope” and “peace,” but “Thank you for coming; have a nice day,” “easy and pleasing,” “two-drink minimum,” “OSHA — 2 riders max,” or my favorite: “If you liked the service, tell your friends. If not, tell me.”
Animals. I think this is really the only acceptable tramp stamp if you are looking for a soul mate instead of ex-husband #1. Sure, it’s a tramp stamp, but it screams “Daddy bought this for me,” “I’m too conservative to go wild with Chinese lettering,” or “I’m not a slut, but I wanted to get in that cool sorority.” You hardly seem like a threat and usually have the God-given sense to hide your tat most of the time from the public eye.
You just keep telling yourself how unique you are with your special tattoo … just like everyone else. You successfully branded yourself like a cow with a badge of promiscuity on the small of your back.
As you bounce from bad relationship to bad relationship, the good guys end up with women who don’t need to brand themselves for guys to know they’re good catches.
After all, you trusted your back to a guy with a tattoo of a swastika on the side of his head, assuming he knows all 47,035 Chinese logograms.
I know us guys are no better with our tattoo choices, but then again, the ones with the trashy tattoos showing though their wifebeaters seem to attract you more than free-drink Thursdays or free tanning.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out how you girls think trashy tats, wifebeater, and crappy car with sound system worth more than the car just screams “able to support me for the rest of my life in a lifestyle similar to The Real Housewives of New York City.” I know some guys like that who are the sweetest, most nurturing in the world, but they are as rare as Gulf shrimp.
It’s just fun to watch you girls bitch about not finding Mr. Right, but date nothing but Mr. Right Now and Mr. Cool Looking.
My advice, girls: Cover up the tramp stamp and learn to look cute without showing off all the skin. Leave something to the imagination.
Nothing looks hotter on my wife than blue jeans, sandals, T-shirt, and hair up in a ponytail. She looks like my partner in life, not some easy piece of ass you kick out of the house in the morning.
And date the quiet ones, girls. They might not look as hot as the white trash you lust over at the bars, but looks are fleeting, beauty fades, but dumbass lasts forever. The quiet, dorky guys are the real Mr. Rights.
I just hope you find out before you end up marrying some moron that doesn’t know the difference between Krakatoa and Mt. Vesuvius, or thinks that people at 7,500-foot elevation in a desert need flood insurance.
If not, me and my wife will spend a lifetime laughing our un-tattooed butts off at you.

Yo Quiero Estados Supremo

Fri, 4 Jun 2010 13:05:38 -0500

Imagine a country where rapists and thieves roam the countryside. A place where landowners who try to stem the inflow of banditos are shot on sight. A place where a man with no name can infiltrate the public services and drain the local economy, all while making himself the victim. This place is Arizona.
Until the Civil War, the U.S. was referred to as “These United States,” with emphasis on the “These” part. The states used to have rights to control their borders, to control their own rules, without interference from other states, and without being told by the morons in Congress what to do, think, and say. The will of the state trumped what California thought.
But lo and behold, we entered the 21st century. Banditos and western thugs were supposed to be a distant memory.
New Mexico, Texas, and California built fences to keep Speedy Gonzales and his cohorts out. They upgraded security and stemmed the tide of illegal immigrants.
Arizona, however, had little help in upgrading its fence. The hundreds of thousands of illegals from Mexico and points south now are funneling through the only open areas of the southern border left open.
Let’s clear the air here. Sneaking into the country illegally is against federal law. There is a proper way to gain immigration status to the United States, and it usually doesn’t include a physical challenge of swimming a river or scaling a wall.
I don’t care the reason for sneaking in; illegal immigration is still illegal. If I snuck into any other country and demanded medical help, free schooling, and free social services, I would be deported after spending a considerable time in a dank, dark jail.
Arizona manned up, grabbed its low-hanging fruit from between its legs, and decided to step in where the federal government failed. Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 empowers law enforcement officers to turn over illegal immigrants to the federal government — not to torture, kill, check IDs out in the street, but to check for immigration status at normal traffic stops. There is even a special provision to make sure racial profiling doesn’t occur.
But, Holden, they are just stopping the Mexicans.
Yes, but there aren’t too many people of Polish descent trying to sneak across Arizona’s southern border. It’s a matter of demographics. If the population of Phoenix is 75% Hispanic, then the law of large numbers dictates that 75% of the people stopped will be Hispanic.
If Sheriff Joe Arpaio were pulling over Eskimos 87% of the time, then people could scream that there was racial profiling — and that Phoenix was being invaded from the north by Eskimos.
Now comes California. Los Angeles was one of the first to start bashing Arizona for defending its own borders from the invading hordes of illegal immigrants.
Boycotting Arizona will obviously fix the problem. Will L.A. not be sending crappy movies, Jay Leno, and smog to Arizona? I sure hope so. That will defiantly show the state who’s boss.
However, Arizona Corporation Commissioner Gary Pierce gets my vote for standing up and reminding L.A. that a quarter of its electricity comes from his state. I hope that the Crips and Bloods can have their gunfights in darker alleys now that L.A. will go “greener” by using less power.
Can’t we all just get along? We can agree that stealing is a crime. Rapists should go to jail. Law and order should be upheld. Can’t we agree that illegally sneaking into a country is a crime and those found should be turned over to the Border Patrol to be returned to the appropriate side of the border? Please?
Finally, I want to give a big shout out to my new friend TB who emailed me about last month’s article. I want to remind him that the big stick was not to be inserted rectally. I know that the gray matter in between my ears may be tapioca pudding, but at least I can read an entire article before going on a blind rampage. But then again, I wrote the entire article just for him.

How to Debate a Liberal

Fri, 7 May 2010 13:41:23 -0500

I am a man who enjoys a good debate. I like to pick the brains of people both smarter and dumber than myself. I enjoy the rare chances to peer into people’s mindsets and see life from their unique points of view.
I relish in the knowledge that we can disagree from the start, have a civil and meaningful debate, and still leave as friends. God, I miss the good old days.
Now, I can’t get two words in edgewise anymore before the name-calling begins. Believe me, people: I have plenty of ex-girlfriends and family members to remind me of my place on this planet without you making the crux of your argument, regardless of the topic, the circumstances surrounding my conception and the various reasons why my mother has to hang meat around my neck so the dogs will play with me.
I lay the blame for the aforementioned problem squarely on the liberals of this country who have been taught by the mainstream media how to argue.
Let’s start with a few assumptions about myself.
Yes, I’m white, male, and own a gun. I love my country but hate where this country is heading. I hate socialism, the nanny state, and welfare society.
I earn my money from working hard and don’t like sharing it with people who don’t want to work. I firmly believe that it’s a parent’s job to parent, not the job of Washington, D.C.
I hate the way I’m portrayed by the liberal media as a hater of the environment, other races, other religions, and whatever they feel like tagging me with to push their agenda. I actually plan to add solar panels and wind turbines to my house.
I watch Fox News, along with CNBC and CNN, and I read The Wall Street Journal, The Onion, The New York Times, and the Alamosa Valley Courier. I like to get my news from all angles, not just the right or the left.
I believe that welfare should be a hand up, not a handout. I’m anti-Big Government and pro-states’ rights. I’m pro-choice (more government regulations), but a fiscal conservative. And I will never apologize for what and who I am — an American.
With that said, I had a debate a few weeks ago on Facebook over high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).
My adversary’s position was that HFCS needs to be banned because Big Corn gets huge subsidies and is poisoning America. He went on to say that farm subsidies go only to Big Corn, and the government needs to regulate HFCS.
I countered with the facts that farm subsidies keep food prices low and are a safety net for poor farmers, too. I also said that maybe, just maybe, HFCS is in so many products because it’s cheap and we like cheap food.
The option to get food without HFCS is there, but it’s a personal choice, and I find it hard to believe that HFCS is killing humans. I think that set him off.
He wrote that HFCS was introduced in the ’80s and is the sole cause of obesity in America.
I mentioned that, in the same decade, we saw the introduction of personal computers, VCRs, video games, satellite TV, and cable TV to give a generation more enticement to stay indoors and not go play outside.
With that, he called me a liar and told me that there are not one but two documentaries by journalism students (who are known to be both knowledgeable in farming and unbiased, to boot) on how Big Corn is raping America. And I believe that was the end of any rational conversation.
When I questioned the journalism student’s documentary, I was told I was in the bed of Big Corn, watched only Faux News, and was one of those teabaggers.
See, that’s the problem. I can’t point/counterpoint with most liberals, because if I don’t see it their way, hook, line, and sinker, I’m not only wrong, but I become the center of their attack. There is no compromise, no “agree to disagree.”
If I differ from them, the litany of personal attacks spews with no end. I am just dismissed as a teabagger, less than human, a racist against the president, or misguided and uneducated.
I just can’t seem to wrap my head around the fact that liberals worship our First Amendment right. It seems to apply only to their right to free speech and opinion.
My opinions are wrong and need to be stifled until I agree with them. As far as they are concerned, the Constitution and Bill of Rights apply only in furtherance of their cause, and any part to the contrary is outdated and warped.
I’ve learned to deal with this handicap over the years when it comes to a debate over government with liberals. First, I always ask, “And how do we change that?”
That usually befuddles the ones that are spouting the talking points. That question always pissed off an ex-girlfriend, forcing her to respond with “This is why nobody likes you” instead of a real answer.
It’s not like I have a magic wand to fix the environment. That’s for making grilled cheese sandwiches.
The next trick is to proudly demand that they cite their sources. Many times, their sources are less then reputable.
The issue of the environment provides a good example.
There was a news report out that the environmental paper that won a Nobel Prize was looked at by college professors here in the U.S., and if a student had written it, he would have failed on most of the 45 chapters. They went on to say that most of the chapters’ references were nonscientific magazine and newspaper articles and internet sources.
When an environmental organization was asked for comment, they said something along the lines of “Regardless, the environment is important.” I guess research and facts are irrelevant as long as the result is in line with your agenda.
But then again, I’m mean and hateful. And I like to club baby seals and spray Freon into the atmosphere.
The final way I love to end an argument with an unwavering and personal-attacking liberal is the simple smile and nod. The smarter ones usually realize that I have given up on civil conversation, and the stupider ones think they have won, report that to the mother ship, and claim their prize for having converted another “free thinker.”
Just be sure not to nod when being asked to protest. That’s just the worst.
So, free thinkers, when you are in a heated debate and informed that you are a <insert push-button topic here>ophobe, remember to ask your opponent how he proposes to make it better and to cite his sources, then politely smile and nod. Slowly pray that he hasn’t bred yet as you cash your check from Big Corn for slowly poisoning America.

April Fools’ Day Earth Day

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 19:40:36 -0500

April is finally here, the time when the caterpillars and pollen invade our cars, houses, and trees. April, unfortunately, also brings Earth Day, another day I have to endure the constant reminder that I am personally destroying Mother Earth as I eat, breathe, poop, and live on the planet.
It’s not that I am against the environment. It’s just that, after seeing the people who seem to be screaming the loudest at me about how evil I am for working and breathing, I doubt their claims are really true.
First, it was global warming, then global cooling; now it’s just climate change. Someone please explain to me what it is. Environmental wackos, you have to pick one and run with it.
When it is hot outside, you scream it’s global warming. Greenhouse gases are increasing and causing all this warming.
However, I’m going to try my own theory: The tilt of the planet on its axis allows for more sunlight on our hemisphere, heating this part of the Earth more — or as I like to call it, summer. But don’t worry: I’m predicting that, come September, we will transition into yet another cooling trend.
What I really don’t get is how it snows a couple of times in Baton Rouge during the past months and the only rationale I hear is that global warming causes colder weather in the winter. Really? If it started raining frogs and all the firstborn sons were killed, would that be more climate change, too?
What happened, environmentalists? Over the past year, the rock-hard “evidence” that screamed that I needed to change over to a Prius and become a vegan seems to have collapsed.
Was it a case of “ends justify the means,” or was it a ploy to prove those nasty Republicans wrong? Now it looks like there was a massive cover-up by the environmental community to stifle independent thought and denounce anyone who challenged human-caused climate change and the people who published such thought.
But the funny part is that those same people are asking for a do-over with the data, as if “I know that there has been no measurable increase in global warming over the last 15 years, but give us another chance to doctor the data to support what we want you to believe…” is a viable excuse.
No, you ruined climate change forever. I will never believe you now.
Recent news touting the rising seas included a piece about an island between India and Bangladesh that suddenly disappeared under the sea, the newest casualty to global warming. After going on and on about rising temperatures and rising seas (about 0.2 inches per year), they mentioned casually that the island was created by a hurricane about 40 years ago.
So this big catastrophe is basically an uninhabited spit of sand that high tide finally hid? Was this overnight? Did the seas rise 10 feet suddenly to hide the island?
Is that all of humanity’s fault? After all, the seas rose 15 feet in the last 8,000 years, while the 8,000 years before that saw a rise of 350 feet. Oh, and there were no SUVs. But I’m sure we had to have been responsible for that.
One of the environmental news pieces I remember from a few years back is the bit on how cows’ farts were more detrimental to the environment than all the cars in the U.S. That’s right: cow farts. All my hamburgers and steaks accounted for more destruction of the environment, more sea levels rising, and more baby seals being clubbed. If I remember correctly, it caused the average temperature of the Earth to rise one quadrillion degrees.
Now, when I read that, I wanted to do what was good, what was right, and I tried. I actively tried to eat as much cow as I could: hamburgers for breakfast, steaks for lunch, even beef jerky for snacks. By God, I must have decimated whole herds of the majestic cow. I even tried to wear as much leather as possible.
But I guess it didn’t help much. Cows and their deadly gas still roam the countryside, ruining, much like Obama’s healthcare law, the lives of future generations.
However, just last month, another report finally came out about the cows. The researcher’s claim that cows were worse on the environment than the cars in the U.S. was based on the following: the greenhouse gases released by burning virgin Amazon rainforests, the environmental damage caused by transporting feed to cows and cows to slaughterhouses, the transportation of meat to and across America, and the power needed to refrigerate and cook it, and so on. Oh, yeah, and the gas that the cows create.
Good research money spent there. I still can’t figure out, after all that bad math, why I can’t seem to trust anything environmentalists say about anything.
Now, I do want to clear up that I am not anti-environment. I think we should all compost and grow a few veggies in our backyards. I think we should try to recycle more and be good stewards of the land.
However, I have to draw the line when I have to become a damn hippie to be environmentally friendly. No flowers in my hair, no tofu, no granola, and I shower at least once a day.
I have to go eat my cow to reduce my carbon footprint that is in some dirty hippie’s ass.

I Got Your App Right Here!

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 23:19:29 -0600

I watch television. A lot.
Well, there’s nothing else to do while sitting in a cabin, where the wind and snow brings the temperature down to something so low that it’s measured in Kelvin. Watching TV, imagining there is a bar in the basement, and making my finger say “redrum” while the wife loads the shotgun … that’s pretty much it, so evenings are filled with satellite TV, and with it, those annoying cell phone commercials.
Luke Wilson, you remind me of that guy in the frat house that constantly acts like the know-it-all: smarmy to the point of being a douche. Actually, I think you passed that point. Watching you act like the guy next door in your moronic commercials makes me want to shoot the actual guy next door, just in case it’s you.
I get that AT&T has the fastest 3G network; I really do. Do you have to remind me several times an hour?
It’s not like I can even get the AT&T reception within 200 miles of where I live. I would have to drive four hours to access your fastest 3G network. My town makes Bayou Pigeon look like downtown Manhattan.
I think what bugs me the most is that Verizon and AT&T are comparing apples to baseball bats. I concede that AT&T has the fastest 3G network, but only if you live in a metropolitan area of over 750,000 people.
Outside of that, you are roaming with no 3G network. Tough luck, but remember how cool and douchy you look with your iPhone. And all those cool apps you have that no longer work when you are more than 50 miles from a Pottery Barn or an Abercrombie & Fitch just make me want to smile when you come to town and get pissed you can’t be cool anymore.
At least they are moving on to the “We cover 97% of all Americans,” even though 3% of 300,000,000 is still 9,000,000, or the combined populations of:
• Wyoming
• North Dakota
• South Dakota
• Alaska
• Washington, D.C.
• Delaware
• Vermont
• Montana
• Rhode Island
• New Hampshire
• Maine
Not that I am a fan of Verizon, but here in the valley, your choices of service are Verizon or landlines. I can not only get 3G service in town, but even in my house.
Their 3G service may be slower, but when it covers most of the nation, it means I won’t lose it when I travel. I spent a summer hiking the Appalachian Trail and got a great signal for plenty of phone calls, even when the nearest road or town was a four-day hike away.
Verizon just covers the nation, and their commercials at least make me feel that I don’t have to be a snobby political science major to use their service.
Besides, no matter how hard I search, there are no cool iPhone apps for my Blackberry, but at least the email and phone parts work, all while getting Fox News Mobile.
I just wish Luke Wilson and his smarmy commercials would disappear so we could get more of those talking gecko or even Doritos commercials. After all, if I can’t get it, why tease me on TV every night and day? You might as well show me LSU promos, Raising Canes, and any real seafood to really stab me where it hurts.