I just got done watching the latest Obama-McCain debate. Now I’m as big into politics as the next guy, but sometimes these things can be so boring that they nearly put me to sleep or I tend to lose focus and start thinking about sex. Ok, so I start thinking about sex no matter what I’m doing. Nevertheless though. for the most part this debate held my attention. Honestly, I can never tell who won. I think unless the person is an abysmal debater like George W Bush or does something really fucking crazy like winking at the camera every 5 minutes, there is usually no clear cut winner, it just depends on who you ask or what side you are on. I think a winner is not known until the latest polls come out showing who gained and who lost ground.

So what we need is  not only ways to improve the debates and make them more interesting but also ways to help determine a winner. So, I have come up with some ideas.

If nothing else these ideas would really spice things up. Not only would more people watch, but I think people would take a greater interest in the whole damn election. They would listen to a candidate rip on the opponent at the convention and say “sure you talk tough now, but lets see how tough you are when you have a leprechaun pounding at your shins.” And it holds the candidates instantly accountable and honest. I think we can all agree that we want them to be honest.

Of course, this is a work in progress. Certainly if you have any other ideas please feel free to add them. But, I happen to think that I’ve got a good start on things right now.

Once again, the Cubs have let me down, this time in a big way. After the great regular season they had, the expectations were sky high. I had hopes for them to go to the World Series. But, being a Cub fan its always in the back of my mind that the worst could happen, such as them getting swept in the first round. Although I thought the Dodgers could beat them, I felt the Cubs getting swept was very unlikely. Well turns out very unlikely was very true. The Cubs looked nothing like the team that dominated the National League this year. In fact, they were a far cry from the same team. They lost without so much as a whimper. I don’t think this hurts as bad as it did in 2003 when they were painstakingly close to getting to the World Series. Of course, ever since then I’ve been somewhat numb to the pain this team has inflicted upon me. Still, this is a tremendous disappointment. I almost think it would have been better if they had at least won the series and then blew things in the National League Championship Series like they did in ’03. At least we would have had some sort of excitement, instead they leave us with the bitter taste of nothingness and embarrassment which is a taste worst than being so close you can taste it.

The question is why do I allow them to do this to me? Why do I remain a fan of this sad, pathetic team. Is it because I love the torture they put me through? Are the mind games they play an attraction in some way? I really don’t know, all I can say is that I’m loyal and when I was a boy I fell in love with this team. The rest is history I guess. I’ve also put in so much time that when it finally does happen and they finally do go all the way, it will mean that much more to me than some fair weather band wagon fan.

Of course, the Sox fans have been having a field day with this one. One insecure, asshole Sox fan from work woke me up with a text message yesterday morning saying that the Cubs potent offense had choked and was a joke.And after the Sox won yesterday for the first time in their series against Tampa, today at work he tried to get under my skin by saying “doesn’t it just drive you nuts that the Sox won more games in October than the Cubs?” To which I replied “No, I really don’t preoccupy myself with the Sox. Doesn’t it just piss you off that no matter how much the Sox win or how good they do, nobody in this town talks about them? Instead all the attention goes to the loser Cubs for being bad.” Now I want to stress that I never started this Cubs-Sox war with him but he has always been a dick about the Cubs. I swear some Sox fans are subhuman. That being said, the Sox  fans got theirs today when they were eliminated by a team that has been around for such as short amount of time that they haven’t even hit puberty yet.

I saw Bill Maher’s Religulous on Friday night. The movie was brilliantly funny and I strongly recommend it. I went with people from work and after the movie we went out to eat and have a discussion on not only the movie but also religion and our beliefs. Most of the people I went with are either Atheists, Agnostic or non practicing Catholics. One guy however is a Baptist/Evangelical, and I thought that he would maybe be offended at the movie. Turns out that he wasn’t offended, he did like it but did not find it nearly as funny as the rest of us.

The movie got me to thinking about how I came to my own beliefs or lack thereof. See, I was raised Catholic. And even through a good portion of my teenage years I still considered myself Catholic in spite of my being gay. I remember being in high school and wanting to get a cross to wear around my neck. The whole time though I kept reading and hearing the church’s view on gays. Obviously, this was a conflict for me. After all, I enjoyed orgasms too much to consider being a priest. Oh, and I wasn’t attracted to little boys.

Soon though I realized that Catholicism and Mike couldn’t coexist. At least not in a good way of coexisting, you know, rum and coke before you throw it all back up at the end of the night. The moment that really ended Catholicism for me was when I read that a Catholic priest said that the children’s show Barney was a tool of the devil because he teaches kids to love everybody including gays and we shouldn’t love gays because they are going to hell. Ok, so he is right, Barney is a tool of the devil, but that is because he is annoying as fuck but not because he teaches people to love gays. After that, I said that I could no longer in good conscience call myself Catholic.

But, I still believed in God and an afterlife. After all, I wanted the party to continue when I die. So I still prayed to him. I still thought about going to heaven after I die. I kinda of half assingly searched for a new religion, you know, kind of like how a guy half assingly looks for a condom before telling the girl that he doesn’t have one so they are just gonna have to fuck without it. Upon learning more about the bible, I realized that it was pretty much a load of crap. No, crap is too soft of a word. Load of shit. No, wait, still too soft. How about heaping load of freshly squeezed bullshit. Yes, that’s it. But, I still believed in God. It turns out believing in a higher power but not the bible or any religion makes one Agnostic. I told somebody once that was what I was and he said “so in other words you are just too much of a pussy to be an Atheist.” Exactly!

When my mom was diagnosed with cancer in the fall of 1999, I remember praying to God that she would be ok. Even after she died, I still believed that she had gone to heaven with my dad and other lost relatives. A lot of people would assume that my mom’s death is what made me an Atheist. That is not the case though. I went on for a good couple of years being Agnostic. It wasn’t until about 6 or 7 years ago when I started to sit and think about if the whole God thing made sense. None of it added up. It just wasn’t logical. And with no actual proof to go on, I started to lean towards not believing at all. There was no evidence to a higher power. I think kinda just grew into Atheism. For a few years, I didn’t call myself an Atheist but instead a borderline Atheist. But after a while, I realized I was what I was. Now I want to stress that I’m probably not an Atheist in the truest sense. Honestly, although I’m not convinced there isn’t a God or an afterlife, I certainly won’t rule it out. I truly do want to believe and would love to go into an afterlife and see my mom so that she can yell at me again. Somebody once asked me why I wouldn’t believe anyway just in case. My answer to that is I can’t force myself to believe something I don’t believe. I also wouldn’t tell everybody I believed just for their sake even though I don’t actually believe. This would make me dishonest. Also, if there is a God and I pretended to believe, he or she would know the truth.

Still through the years I have had people say all sorts of crazy things to me. One guy I used to work with (who does not know I’m gay) who like me is a recovering Catholic, said to me that the Catholic Church still considers me Catholic. I explained that they didn’t get to make that choice for me. He said in their eyes, once Catholic, always Catholic and there were only 2 ways to be ex-communicated from the Catholic Church, to be either Protestant or gay. I paused for a second before shooting back “Well, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be Protestant!”

Earlier this year a lady at work and I were discussing politics. She then asked me “So, Atheists vote?”  Well, yeah, why the hell wouldn’t we, we do still care about the world.

I’ve realized that being an Atheist has its own challenges not unlike being gay. People are scared of Atheists and even discriminate against them. In some respects, it might even be tougher to be an Atheist than to be gay. A lot of people understand gay, they don’t understand Atheism. When I was growing up, my sister (who is now Wiccan) was an Atheist and I just could not understand how she couldn’t believe. Well, I fully understand now. Now I don’t understand why grown adults can’t understand why people are Atheists.