If you were living in America 65 years ago while the holocaust was
going on in Europe, what would personally do? Would it bother you?
Would you be appalled? Would you write a member of Congress asking him
(most members of Congress were male back then, if not all) to do
something? Well, sadly, there is what amounts to a holocaust going on
right now in Africa, namely, Dafur. Millions of people have been
displaced, thousands upon thousands have died, more have been raped and
lots more are starving to death because of what is going on there. I
don’t want to get into too many details, because to be honest, I
wouldn’t do it justice, but I will refer you to this website for more
info:
http://www.savedarfur.org/
You might say “why should I care” but I say to you, how can you NOT
care. This is what basically amounts to genocide and ethnic cleansing
going on in Dafur and if it doesn’t make you at least be slightly
concerned, than I am worried about your very conscience. People say its
tragic, but we have our own problems here. Sure, we do, that is without
dispute. But, if you are going through some sort of personal crisis and
at the same time, your neighbor’s house is on fire, do you look the
other way and say “that’s tragic, but I have my own problems”? No, you
do something. Congress will be approving aid for Darfur which is great.
Now, I know America has a lot of pleas from other countries for help
and to be honest, we can not save and help everybody. But, this is
where us as citizens come in. We have to let our elected officials know
which issues are important to us. And, we also should press the UN to
do far more than what they have already done. America the world’s only
super power, but not even America can solve this problem on our own. We
need the whole world to take notice of what is happening and Dafur
needs the support of the whole world. If all non third world countries
and the UN help, we can make a difference and end this living hell for
the people of Dafur. Dafur is a modern day holocaust, and I know that
if I were around back in the 1940s, I would be extremely bothered by
the holocaust. The bottom line is that these are humans and we should
always lend help to those that can not help themselves, it is, after
all the moral and right thing to do.
Last night was Scooty’s Jamaican party that a lot of people forgot to
show up to. Or, at least, they were busy and could not make it. Either
way, there was not many people there, which sucked, but we still
managed to have a good time. Scooty was making daiquiris for everybody,
which really kicked ass, I haven’t had one in years. They were not very
strong, though, as it barely gave me a buzz. They also had all sorts of
good Jamaican food, such as jerk chicken and…………other chicken.
The weather was pure Jamaican weather, a balmy 59 degrees and dropping
with wind and near constant sprinkles. Lovely. We hung out until about
12:30ish when I came home.
Today, I took Keith and Heather’s 6 year old daughter Nicole to see a
movie. She really wanted to see some other movie, but I talked her into
seeing The Omen. At first, I didn’t think it would be an appropriate
movie for kids to watch, but the theatre was packed with kids. I guess
it is a kids movie, I mean, after all, it is about a child. I’ll tell
you, though, its a lot different from the original Omen. For example,
there were a lot of cars in the movie, and they must have all been
possessed by Satan because they were all talking. But, it must have
been a good sort of possession, because most of the cars were not mean,
but instead happy. In fact, the movie really wasn’t too scary at all, I
think they really tamed it down. It must be because of the crazy
Republicans and their crusade for decency, but there wasn’t even any
scary music at all and nobody was jumping or screaming. Sure, there was
a little bit of crying and kids making a little bit of noise, but
nothing like when I took the kids my mom babysat to see the Blair Witch
Project.
I came into work today knowing that I would more than likely find out
if I got the job I applied for. Finally, at about 9:45ish, I get a call
from the manager of that department to come up to her office. This was
it, I had the job. As I walked over there, I got nervous, but in an
excited sort of way. This job was tailored made for me, I was perfect
for it, it has my name all over it, I have wanted this job since I
started at this company. Her office door was closed so I knocked and
came in. She had a smile on her face and told me to have a seat. She
said she wanted to thank me for applying and…………
“I am not able to offer you this position right now.” I was stunned.
Shocked. Devastated. I asked her what it was and she told me that the
interview was great, I’m very intelligent but to try to be more
focused. She told me she would have loved to have worked with me. She
said that there were so many qualified people that this was the
toughest decision she ever had to make at any job she had ever been at.
I asked her later if it was more that somebody else was more qualified
than me doing something and she said yes. Perhaps I was overconfident,
but I was so sure I had this job. I refuse to accept that I was not as
qualified as somebody else, after all, I have 3 1/2 years experience in
this very job at AAA and my stats at this job are awesome. I’m a model
employee. I don’t know who actually got the job, but I have a
good idea and if it is correct, I was fucking robbed. That person,
although qualified, is rude and not customer service oriented in any
way. I was so disappointed, I spent the rest of the day in a foggy state
of disbelief. If I can’t get this position, than what does my future
hold at this company. This is a job I have eyed ever since I started, I
knew I could get it. I don’t know what else to say.
I told her that I would work hard and if another spot opens up, I will
be right there. And I mean that. I want to do everything I can to prove
that they made the wrong choice and I was the right person for the job.
On the other hand, I’m questioning if maybe this is not the right
company for me. I will take a few months to think, as I don’t want to
have a knee jerk reaction and leave a good thing.
So, the gay marriage ban was not approved. For now. Something tells me,
we haven’t heard the last of this. I’m sure it will be back the next
time the Republicans need to get their base fired up. You should have
seen the Daily Show last night, it was funny as hell, and Jon Stewart
really deabated this author pretty good on the gay marriage issue.
I’ve noticed people have stopped updating their Xangas on a regular
basis………what gives, people. You need to……..what is the
opposite of get a life……….oh, I know, you need to live less and
go online more so that you can update your Xanga. If people don’t
support this “internet” thing, than it may fail.
I was reading Time’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people
and I have to tell you, I’m a little disappointed that I’m not on the
list. I mean, first, People leaves me off the 50 most beautiful people
list and now this. I mean, what does a guy have to do to get some love
around here? Maybe I will just wait for their 100 least interesting and
funny looking list, I’m a cinch to be in the top 10 of that.
::Sigh: really I’ve got nothing else for now. I guess its time to take
a trip down memory lane, to the time when I separated my shoulder
playing baseball.
Flashback to Wednesday July 4, 2001. We were playing baseball and I was
playing right field in the top of the first inning. My left handed
hitting cousin was up to bat, and he usually could hit the ball pretty
damn far. Anywho, right field was right next to the parking lot, which
was, obviously, right next to the street. He hit a ball that was
ticketed for the street, or so I thought so. We didn’t have many balls
so I wanted to prevent this from reaching the street. I was running, at
full speed mind you, after this ball when I came off the grass and into
the lot. I had my eyes focused entirely on the ball and never saw the
step onto the blacktop. I stumbled and tried to keep my footing but saw
another area of grass, I thought that if I could just not fall until I
got there, I would save myself a lot of scraps and bruises and maybe
even stay on my feet. However, I hit the step that leads to that area
of grass and hit the grass hard onto my right shoulder, rolling over.
It was instant pain, but all I could hear in the background was Jt (who
was playing centerfield at the time) laughing really hard at what just
happened. I can’t blame him, I would have been laughing too if I had
seen it. Anywho, hearing the laughing made me think “Its just a
scrape”, so I popped right up, kinda embarrassed at what just happened.
I started to jog back to the field but stopped, grabbing my shoulder.
Everybody started to ask me if I was ok and I said yeah, I was fine,
not wanting to make a big deal out of it………..mainly, because I
was embarrassed.
At the end of the inning, I went into the dugout and pulled my shirt
down and looked at the damage. Although it hurt, and pretty bad, I
might add, it was just a few scrapes, I assumed it was nothing. So, I
went to bat. Each swing was excruciating, but somehow, I managed to
make contact a few times throughout the course of the day. Midway
through the game, I had not had a ball hit in my direction when finally
one came my way and the pain I felt throwing it back to the infield,
well, it probably was the worst pain I ever felt. I let out a loud
scream and was beginning to think that I had done some damage to it. A
few innings later, somebody called last inning and I quickly agreed,
saying that no matter what, I was done after this inning.
After the game, we went back to my house to bbq, before Dave, Kelli, Jt
and I headed over to Naperville’s Ribfest to see one of Dae’s bands
perform. The whole time, I was in serious pain, even walking hurt, and
with the large crowd, I bumped into people several times which, to be
blunt, hurt like a motherfucker. That night, I went to bed and had one
of the worst nights sleep I ever had, for starters I like to sleep on
my right side which I was not able to do. Plus, I was simply in too
much pain to jerk off. Yeah, I know, it was that bad. Like I said, the
worst pain I ever felt. As I laid in bed, I said that
if I wasn’t better by Monday, I would go to the doctor. I was working
2nd shift at the time and got up about 10ish and stood up to put on my
shorts. Trying to lower my shorts onto my legs was an incredible
amount of pain. I called Jt and told him about it and he said that if I
was in that much pain, I should go to the doctor. I thought about
it and said that if I wasn’t better by tomorrow, Friday, I would go.
Notice, the days keep moving up.
Now, I had only been at AAA for a few months and was extremely
reluctant to call off work, so I painfully showered and headed in. I
got to work and told my boss what had happened. She asked me if I was
ok and I said yes, although as I sat there, grimicing and groaning as I
tried to type, my co workers encouraged me to go to the doctor or
emergency room. Finally, after an hour, I did just that, driving all
the way to Bolingbrook Medical Center where I found out I had a first
degree separation of my right shoulder. In layman’s terms, I fucked my
shit up and it hurt like a motherfucker. I was told to go to a
specialist who deals with dumbasses that do stupid shit like what I had
done. The next day, I had Jt take me to the doctor and no, he did not
push it back into place or anything like that. He just told me to wear
a sling and that it could take 6 months to a year to fully heal. In
fact, he even said that in a way, it will never heal and I will
sometimes have pain in my shoulder. I had to see the doctor every 2 or
3 weeks for the next couple of months. To this day, I still
occasionally get pain in my shoulder, especially if I sleep on it
wrong.
It wasn’t a fear of doctors that kept me from going. Honestly, I don’t
mind doctors so much. But, instead, I was kind of in denial, I didn’t
think I could hurt myself in such a simple, yet stupid way. Because of
this, I was embarrassed to think that I might have really fucked
something up.
As for the ball, I did manage to angrily pick it up shortly after
getting up. It never did make it to the street, it stopped rolling at
the grass that was before the curb. Shit, if only Steve Bartman was
there, none of this would have happened.
As everybody knows, today was 6-6-6, the numbers that are known as the
number of the beast. I have to say, its about damn fucking time! After
all, God has TWO, count them T-W-O holidays along with a day every
single Sunday, so a day for Satan every 100 is the least we can do. I
mean, if you listen to the bible, he is an extremely powerful and
influential dude, so I think he deserves a day at least once every 100
years. After all, everybody deserves to be a princess every now and
then, and this is just Lucifer’s princess time. Its kinda like his
wedding day, a day when the spotlight is entirely on him. Oh, and my
mother’s sister, since she would be the one marrying him. He is the
second most powerful dude behind the God-meister, and even less
powerful people have had there own day. In fact, didn’t lame ass Tony
Danza have a Tony Danza Day in whatever lame ass town he was born in?
And certainly, if Tony Danza gets a day, then the Prince of Darkness
gets a day, right?
I should clarify just in case somebody that doesn’t know me reads this.
I don’t believe any of the Godly/Satan whoha, so none of that above is
serious.
So, once again, the gay marriage debate is in the news. What I find so
maddening about this is that the Christians try to make it a religious
issue, when if you think about it, it is not a religious issue. See,
what it comes down to is civil rights. And as is the case with civil
rights, when giving some group of people rights, you should never take
away rights from somebody else. In the gay marriage case, gays are just
getting the right to marry, nobody else is losing any other rights.
Straight people will still have the same rights, gays would just have
equal ground. We live in a country that guarantees as a fundamental
right, the pursuit of happiness for everybody. For years, that right
pertained to just straight, white males. Now, fortunately, it applies
to
males and females of all colors, but not sexual orientation. A big
Christian argument is making gay marriage legal would lead to other
deviant things being legal, such as bestiality or incest. Ok, lets look at this a little deeper.
When bi-racial marriages were finally made legal in 1967, opponents
said that it would lead to all sorts of things, and yet, nothing has
changed, marriage is still marriage and oh yeah, if you look up, the
sky is still there. When prohibition was repealed, people said that it
was only a matter of time before other drugs, such as pot, was made
legal. Needless to say 80 years later and we are still waiting for pot
to be made legal. Those are just 2 small examples as to why gay
marriage should be legal.
Another argument that conservatives have is that it would shake the
very foundation and cheapen the meaning of marriage. Sorry, but the
opposite of marriage isn’t gay marriage, but divorce. I’m a firm
believer that people should be able to divorce freely, but if
Christians want to come down hard on gay marriage, they should come
down just as hard on divorce. Nothing cheapens marriage like divorce.
You can’t very well tell people who are in love with each other that
they can’t marry and yet look the other way when people end a marriage
and get a divorce, yet, you don’t hear about people protesting divorce
and you sure as hell don’t see any potential divorce amendments in
Congress, do you? They call the gay marriage ban the “Defense of
Marriage Amendment” but shouldn’t divorce be somewhere in there? I mean,
marriage is a sacrament that has the blessing of God, shouldn’t we be
passing laws against divorce? Of course not, and if there are no laws
against divorce, there shouldn’t be any against gay marriage.
Perhaps the most popular argument against gay marriage is that God
says it is wrong. Well, America was founded on the belief of freedom of
religion and later added separation of church and state. Just that
basic right should guarantee that God should not play a significant
roll in making the law of the land. Not everybody in this country
believes in God, some believe in other gods, some believe in Satan and
some don’t believe at all. Granted, the overwhelming majority of the
country is Christian, but that doesn’t mean the laws should be based on
any Christian beliefs. Millions of people have come to our country
looking for a better life and for gays, that better life sometimes is
marriage.
Another argument is that we can’t just change the definition of
marriage. Well, other countries, including English speaking countries,
have legalized gay marriage, therefore, in the mere definition has been
changed, rendering the old definition meaningless. Its that simple.
Some people say that if this amendment passes (and the odds of it
passing are very low) it will be writing hate into the constitution.
This is an overstatement, but its is not an overstatement to say that
it is writing discrimination into the constitution. Just think if there
was an amendments that stating that blacks or Asians couldn’t marry,
such a law would never be accepted and shouldn’t be accepted against
gays either. We live in a country that has free speech and freedom for
everybody, but that doesn’t allow for discrimination.
I do feel there is a middle ground here, and that is that gays have the
full right to marry, but churches don’t have to marry them, and I think
if you asked many gays, they would not want to be married in any church
that doesn’t accept them. All gays truly want is the same as everybody
else, which isn’t asking for anything different. If a church chooses to
not allow gays to get married, so be it, it is there loss. I just don’t
see how two people being in love and wanting to get married is the
business of anybody else but themselves. Churches and religions don’t
have to approve of it, its none of their business, but people should no
doubt have the right to do what they want, as long as it doesn’t
affect anybody else.
Gay marriage bans have passed in a lot of states over the course of the
past few years, and that is because gays do not have the support of
heterosexuals. As much of a debate as this is, we have to realize that
gays still only make up about 10% of the population at the most, and in
many states, that number is much lower. Therefore, the only way gays
will ever get the right to marry is with the support of heterosexuals.
I want to believe that a majority of the country doesn’t care who
marries who, but the approval of these gay marriage bans (all of which
required voter approval) makes me think otherwise. Straight people need
to support gays on this because it is the right thing to do, as Martin
Luther King said, “If there is injustice anywhere, there is injustice everywhere”
and gays not being allowed to marry is an injustice. A lot of gays
don’t want to admit this, but gays need heterosexuals to give them
their full support on this hot button issue.
Yesterday, I had another guy come out for a quote on the garage, as I
waited for the local Romeoville guy to get back to me on his quote. The
guy that showed up yesterday was from a place called Garage Pro and he
was supposed to arrive at 11 in the AM. I got through exercising at
about 10:50 and figured it to be pointless to each breakfast since the
man would arrive in a few minutes. At 11:15, I decided to eat
breakfast, as I was pissed off that he was not here yet. Finally at
11:25, the bastard shows up and I couldn’t be anymore pissed off. I’m
always a person that is on time, as I find it rude and disrespectful to
keep somebody waiting. So, when he knocked at the door, I didn’t even
let him in and coldly told him to go out back and do his quote. He did,
however, give me a pretty fair price and now I sit and wait for the
Romeoville dude, who I really want to use, to get back to me. I’m do
damn sick of waiting for quotes, I can’t wait until this whole thing is
over and I have a normal looking garage. These fucking people, why are
contractors always so damn unreliable? I mean, what the fuck?
After the quote and after showering, I headed to the mall in search of
a birthday gift for Dave. I didn’t know what I wanted to get him, but
once I stopped at Spencer’s and saw a card table topper for half off, I
knew I had found the gift. Of course, the box was pretty banged up, but
looking inside, it looked like it was in good condition, so I purchased
it, along with a poker book from Boarder’s. Dave seemed pretty excited
to get the table topper, as it fit perfectly right on his round kitchen
table. Now we just have to have a card game.
Last night was a burn at Keith and Heather’s house. I picked up Dave
and asked him if he wanted to stop at the liquor store for beer, but he
instead suggested Meijer. I swear, I love going shopping with
Dave…………its not so much shopping as it is an adventure. In this
instance, I thought we were
going just for beer. But Dave, who always goes all out for everything,
decided that we should get some cheddar brats and chips to roast over
the fire, in addition to the smores we already had in the car. He even
went as far as to purchase pokers, even though I told him that Keith
and Heather have some and we still had Dave’s pokers which were at my
house. Now, as far as the whole Dave Shopping Experience, the
craziness usually comes when he gets a cart. I’m convinced that Dave
suffers from a condition called “Abandoned Shopping Syndrome” in which
he feels the need to abandon his shopping cart every few minutes and
walk to the next aisle to get something. This leaves me, of course, to
continue pushing the cart. Another thing that I always find funny with
the Dave Shopping Experience is that he will pass up the same thing
several times in search of something better and in the end, will just
go back and grab the thing he passed up. He also likes to pick
different brands of the same product up, stare at them and compare
them for a few minutes before putting it into the cart, which is about
5 or 6 aisles away. Shopping with Dave in a large store like Meijer is
always fun, as normally, Dave has no clue where anything is located.
Back in the day, Jt, Dave and I used to sometimes go shopping at Meijer
in the middle of the night, which usually made for some pretty goofy
moments, like us racing rolls of tapes down the aisles or pushing each
other on carts. Mind you, this wasn’t like when we were teens, this was
like 2 or 3 years ago.
As for the burn itself, it was pretty cool, it was just us and Brian
and Rene, although the kids were there for the early part of the
evening. Rene’s 20 year old son Tony and his hot friends were in her
yard playing beanbags for most of the night. A part of me wanted to go
over there and whip there asses at bags, but instead, we just hung out
around the fire.
This week figures to be a semi-important week for gay rights, as Bush
will make a statement about the gay marriage ban amendment he is
trying to get passed in Congress. I think the bill is supposed to go to
the Senate on Tuesday, but in all honesty, it stands little chance of
passing. I will write more about this later in the week, but just
wanted to mention it today.
I found out today that I won’t know until next week at the earliest if I got the position I applied for. If I don’t find out by Thursday, I probably won’t know until, and this REALLY sucks, the end of the fucking month. Damn, Tom Petty was right, the waiting is the hardest part.
I think that if Geena Davis were a male, she would have a big dick. Does anybody else know what I mean?
Its been a while, since I did this, but I’m sure glad its back. Its time for another edition of “PAT ROBERTSON SAYS THE DUMBEST THINGS.” 76 year old Robertson, who is one of the world’s biggest dumbasses, claims he recently leg-pressed one ton, which is twice what most elite athletes can press and reportedly a lot more than the world record. He said he did it with a protein shake containing flaxseed oil, and yes, flaxseed oil is the same stuff Barry Bonds claims he thought he was taking, but instead was steroids. Yeah, this is just what the world needs, Pat Robertson on ‘roids. Could you imagine, it would take his squinting to a whole new level. And if you thought he hated gays before the steroids, just wait until they take full effect. He would be unstoppable. The 10 Commandments issue in our courts? Well, don’t look now, but here comes Robertson, pushing the Commandments with his powerful legs right back in front of the court. And, those pro choice protesters? Well, here comes Pat, beating the shit out of them in a mad fit of ‘roid rage. So-called activist judges that rule in favor of evolution? Well, I hope they have security walking them to their car tonight. And he would be back in church on Sunday morning, praying that God can find a way to fix the window he broke when he shut it with his massive steroid sized biceps. Lets just try to add up this crazy ass claim of his. One ton, which is pretty much the weight of some cars. Pat is not a fat fuck like his fuck buddy Jerry Falwell. Pat is an average sized man, actually, probably even smaller, I mean, the guy probably tops out at 190lbs, and that is being generous. And ok, lets say he is 6ft, that is not very big. Here is a picture of the man that can leg press a ton
See, he sure as hell isn’t big, hell, he doesn’t even look as big as, say, Jerry Seinfeld. So unless he turns into the fucking Hulk, I don’t see he did this. Another point is that he is 76 years old. Jack Lalaine couldn’t even do that. Just picture this, your grandpa pushing a Pinto down the street with his legs and you would have the equivalent of what Robertson is claiming.
