I was reading an article on Yahoo! yesterday about how up to $60 billion in war funds have been wasted over the course of the past 10 years on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is no shortage of culprits for why this money was wasted, among them fraud, mistakes and lack of oversight. For a country with a raging debt and deep concerns about spending, this is an embarrassment.

A big part of the problem is something I’ve been saying for years: defense contractors. For example, I’ve heard from multiple sources that one of the biggest contractors, Halliburton, charges the military $103 to do one load of laundry and $48 for a case of soda. Can somebody explain to me why we let these fucking crooks get away with this bullshit? Well it certainly helps that before he was Vice President, Dick Cheney was president of Halliburton.

Thankfully though in 2008, Barack Obama campaigned that he would help cut the cost of spending on military contractors. Fortunately he won the election and that meant big trouble for these companies, after all, Bush and Cheney were gone; not replaced by another war hawking Republican itching to use contractors, but instead replaced by a Democratic president who would not stand for waste.

Except.

Since he got into office, Obama has INCREASED the use and spending of defense contractors. Seriously. What the fuck?

Fortunately we live in a country in which the people sometimes can make a difference. You can contact your representative and senators and tell them that contracting with these companies should no longer be tolerated. Look, I loathe the Tea Party as much as anybody, but the one good thing they have done is put the focus on spending and waste. And while many Republicans are not serious enough about spending to do something about the contractors, these Tea Party fuckers tend not to care only about spending and probably would do something about it.

And while you are at it, tell them that we need to leave these other countries. And I don’t mean just Iraq and Afghanistan, but I mean every other country we went to and forgot to leave.

Am I the only one who is sick of beer commercials? I suspect I am, seeing as they are so damn popular. And if I’m not the only one sick of them, chances are an overwhelming majority of straight males love them and can’t get enough of them. Of course, they are specifically made for and pandered to the straight male so naturally they would love them. But for the rest of us……………..well fuck.

It’s not even that they are cliched but they are also really fucking dumb. They make it seem like the beer is the most important thing ever. Okay, so I guess that is what a good ad is supposed to do, but they go way the fuck over the top with it. Oh, look at this, my beer is the most important thing in my life; I’m willing to totally fuck over my friends and family for a fucking Buttweiser. Or then there is the ever popular ads in which they try to make it seem like the beer makes all of the socially acceptable rules for the male society. Or how guys act like total fucking doucheheads when they are around each other.

Now I’m not saying there aren’t some good beer ads. I’m just saying that a majority of them suck giant donkey ass. And because of this attitude the beer commercials have, it has spread to guys actually believing how important beer is. Look, we can get drunk on anything; it doesn’t have to be beer. And no matter how amazing beer is (and it’s not…………..it happens to kinda taste like piss at times) it is and will always be a long distance second to orgasms.

All I’m saying is that these companies need to come up with better and more original ads. All of them seem to be the same; dumbass guys doing stupid shit to get a lame fucking beer while a hot chick watches. Enough already. I guess the main culprits in all of this are Miller and Budweiser. They need to find ways to be more original like those great Dos Equis commercials with the Most Interesting Man In the World.

So based on my previous post you may know that I was in Iowa for the past week for work. Well there was nothing too overwhelmingly exciting that happened to me, at the very least I should briefly summarize the trip. The car service picked me up about 2:25 in the P.M. for my 5:15 flight. By the time we got to our hotel right near the Des Moines airport it was nearly 7, which means that I could have driven it in the time it took from me to go from my door to the hotel. And I wouldn’t have had to deal with all the bullshit of flying and could have packed as much as I wanted. But, I would have missed the chance at a full body pat down!

We wound up staying at the Hampton Inn. Nothing extravagant, although my cab driver claimed sitting U.S. presidents stay there when in town. I did like the hotel though, it was clean, they had a workout room, free internet access in the lobby and a free breakfast every morning. When I say breakfast I mean an actual breakfast, not just a bagel and coffee. They had free eggs and potatoes and you could make your own waffle as well. Why is it that the ritzy four star hotels don’t have free breakfast but the cheapo hotels do? Shit, if I’m paying a left testicle for a room the least they can do is throw in breakfast.

The car I wound up renting was a Chevy Impala, which is a big upgrade from my 10 year old Cavalier. We also had a GPS which did and did not come in handy, at least when it wasn’t busy leading us down the incorrect roads. Still it was a nice change of pace to have a car that had good pick up and the ability to play my IPOD and whatnot.

The lady I was with was old enough to be  my mom and although very nice, not the type that went out at night. So, pretty much every night I went out it was by myself. Sunday night I took a cab into downtown Des Moines and went to a couple of bars. Nothing too exciting though. Sunday night was the last night of the Iowa State Fair, so I think a lot of people were out that way instead of downtown.

Monday was a half day at the company we were going to about 70 miles south of Des Moines. We had to be there by 12:30 and after getting a little lost on the way down there, we arrived right about noon. The place was tiny and to be honest, kind of primitive. The training would be held in a little conference room right next to the presidents office. I will have to go into more detail about the actual training in a separate, protected post. The rest of this post will focus on non work stuff.

Monday evening we went to dinner at a really good pizza place in Des Moines. I didn’t do anything Monday night after dinner except talk on the phone to some friends. Tuesday night though, after dinner at a great Mexican place, I went to a couple of gay bars in Des Moines. Nothing too exciting, I couldn’t even get somebody even talk to me.

The next night I went out was on Thursday. I went to a piano bar called Blue Moon. I love piano bars. Even though I was by myself, I knew I would have a good time and this was no exception. For those of you who have never been to a dueling piano bar, you might not know what to expect. People seem to think piano bars are classy, lounge type music but that couldn’t be further from the case. What it actually involves is the piano players taking requests from the audience along with making up songs about sex and drinking and making fun of people in the audience. For example, I brought up a song request and when I was walking back to my seat one of the piano players called me an Israeli Forrest Gump! I was dressed kind of nerdy but am Italian and not Israeli. I found it funny though. For those of you keeping track, I have now  been confused for being Israeli, Arabic, black and most commonly, Hispanic of some sort.

After a half day on Friday morning, we headed back home. Although I had been to Iowa before, it was never for more then a couple of hours or to just drive through. It is not a bad place, however I think there is not much more to do besides Des Moines, which is even limited as well when it comes to entertainment. I suspect though that there is a chance I may have to go back out there again in the future for work.

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve always wanted to travel on business. I guess I just love travel and going anywhere else, especially if you have never been there before, is kind of exciting. And then when you throw in the fact that it is free since the company would pay for it, that makes traveling for business even better. So I jumped at the chance to go out of town this week for my job. The place: Iowa.

Okay so everybody knows the main town in Iowa is Des Moines, that is, if you consider it to be a main town. So yes, I will be staying there. But, the actual town that I need to do the business in is a little town about an hour south of Des Monies called Lamoni. Now when I say little town, I mean little; according to Wikkipedia, it is a town that has about 2,444 people and is only 3.3 square miles. And, here is the kicker, it is a heavily populated Mormon town along with a sizable portion of Amish. Also, it is highly likely that I will be the darkest person they have seen there in years. Not that I’m all that dark; it is just that they are just that fucking white. So, this should be a great place for a gay Atheist to be.

Des Moines is only a five hour drive from where I live. So naturally, the company is insisting that I fly there, even though I made it clear to everybody that I would strongly prefer to drive. It is no big secret that I hate to fly. But, I need to get over my fear of flying by doing it more, so that is the one good thing. But, from the time the limo picks me up at 2:30 in the P.M. to the time I get to my hotel, it will be five hours. It is a 40 minute drive to O’Hare, the fight leaves about 5:15 and is an hour and 15 minute flight, then we have to get our bags and car rental so actually, when I add it up, I’m thinking it is longer then five hours. And it would be cheaper for them to rent me a car and drive the whole damn thing, but they refused. Gosh flying is such a pain in the fucking ass. By the way, did I mention I’m going with a lady I barely know who is old enough to be my mother? She is very nice though.

I know this post sounds like I’m bitching and complaining, but honestly, I’m not, I’m actually very excited about the whole trip as this will be the first time in my entire life that I’m traveling for business. Also, I will not be posting for the next week.

Did I say that I used to be a little girl? Hmmm…………..wow, how the fuck could I screw that one up?

As I laid in bed last night struggling as always to fall asleep, I started thinking about a world in which sleep was not needed. Just think about this, we spend a good portion of our lives sleeping; ideally a third of our day. People always complain about not having enough time in their lives, well shit, imagine the amount of time we would have if we didn’t sleep. Shit, even people who are sleep deprived sleep probably at least 4-5 hours a day which is still a good chunk of your day. But a world without sleep brings up a slew of questions, such as:

1. Without sleep, we would not have a need for beds so where would we fuck? See right now people spend upwards of a grand or more on beds because sleep is important and we spend, again, a third of our day on the bed. But, without sleep would we really invest that much in something that is only going to last 20 minutes or if you are me, 58 seconds to jerk off. So, where would we comfortably, privately fuck? I don’t know about you, but bathtub sex is great and all, but I would get uncomfortable and old if it was THE ONLY PLACE YOU FUCKED. And fucking on the floor…………too much rug burn.
2. Without a huge bed taking up your bedroom, what would you put there? And better yet, with no bed, it would not be called the bedroom. It would instead be the clothes room. Or the fuck room. Or maybe with all the extra space you would become a hoarder. And where would we hide our porn magazines if there was no bed to hide them under or a mattress to stuff them under. Nevertheless, extra space is something everybody wants, just like extra time, which brings me to…….
3. What the hell would retired people do? Old people reliably fall asleep in front of the t.v., what about three hours a day? So in addition to their regular sleep, they have that extra time as well. So if they are retired, they would have twenty four fucking hours to kill. Think about this. That means they can call and annoy the shit out of their kids that much more. And old people make difficult customers, well guess the fuck what, this means they would spend even more time harassing the unfortunate SOBs who work in customer service.
4. How different would the world be if the entire world never stopped? Oh sure, right now, the world constantly has some people doing something, but imagine if the worlds seven billion people never stopped consuming various things and shit. Geez, I wonder if our little planet could handle that. We might have to start deporting some of the people to other planets, like Druidia.
5. Would people actually stop bitching about how they have no time? Who the fuck am I kidding of course they wouldn’t.

See, those are just five questions, honestly, I could go on and on if I didn’t have to get to bed. You know, somebody should do a movie about a world that doesn’t need sleep. Now feel free to make one and give me all the damn credit since I’m the one who came up with the idea! Unless the movie is a total fucking bomb; in that case it was all your idea.

I’ve written many times about the overwhelming homophobia that is present in sports. It seems like we don’t go more then a few weeks without hearing about how some athlete, coach, or somebody else in the sports world using a gay slur. And while that is something that definitely needs to change, I decided to focus on a couple of straight athletes who are making a difference.

The first is former NCAA wrestling champ, 25 year old Hudson Taylor. Just who the hell is Hudson Taylor you ask? Well I’m glad you asked. Currently he is a coach at Columbia University who was, get this, raised in an Evangelical Christian home, and as we all know, Evangelicals are not exactly known for being tolerant of gays. But, yet, he defies all stereotypes about Evangelicals and athletes; he is not only supportive of gays, but he has gone much further than many gay people themselves by starting an organization to educate, encourage, and empower straight athletes to combat homophobia and transphobia in sports. You can read more and even get involved yourself at:

http://www.athleteally.com/

The second is former British rugby star Ben Cohen. I’d tell his story, but why do that when I can just copy and paste from his website:

“I lost my own father to violence when he stood up for an employee who was being attacked. I’ve heard from my wonderful friends in the LGBT community about the hard roads too many have traveled. And many parents have shared painful stories with me about how their children, who might be perceived to be different, are ruthlessly attacked and scared of their own schools. I am passionate about standing up against bullying and homophobia in sports, and feel compelled to take action. It is time we stand up for what is right and support people who are being harmed. Every person on this planet has a right to be true to themselves, to love and be loved, and to be happy. I encourage others to stand up with me and make a difference. Simply shop or donate, and your efforts will help fund extremely important work.”

Wow, I hope I didn’t just commit plagiary. Nevertheless, his site is here:

http://www.standupfoundation.com/

I’ve always said the battle for gay rights can not be won without strong support from the straight world. The fact is, there are far more straight people than gay people and no fight for civil rights is ever won on sole support of the minority. These two gentleman truly represent what is great with the world and we certainly need more straight people like them to get involved.

As you may or may not know I am a huge Green Day fan. It’s funny, I used to hate Green Day when they first came out with Dookie in 1994 but then they released “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” from the Nimrod album and I fell in love with the song. Still, I didn’t like Green Day so much. A few years later came the song “Minority” which I grew to like but I was still in my Green Day denial phase. Then came 2004 and the hugely successful American Idiot album which changed everything. The title track was an anti George Bush and anti redneck Republican song and of course it appealed to me. Then came quite possibly the biggest song from the album, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” which for many reasons, has special meaning for me and it very well might be my favorite song of all time, with apologies of course to “American Pie”. Soon though, the American Idiot album became my favorite album of all time and something I can never get sick of. So when I found out there was going to be an American Idiot Broadway musical, I knew I had to go.

As fortunes would have it, I wound up going to New York City for New Year’s Eve this past year and saw the musical on January 1 of this year. Now I’ve never been a fan of musicals in the least. In fact, I couldn’t stand them, but I love American Idiot so much so something had to give. If I ever was going to see a musical, this would be it. And I LOVED it and found a whole new appreciation of musicals, so much that I think I want to go to another one. Maybe it is finally my gay side coming out, but honestly, it was really fucking cool; there was just so much visually on that stage and then you throw in the music and holy fuck, you have some quality entertainment. Honestly, I don’t know why I’ve hated musicals so much, after all, I love to sing and love music.

So recently, I came across the CD release of the American Idiot Broadway musical. That’s right, they made a CD of a musical of a CD. Kinda redundant, don’t ya think? But, of course, the songs on the musical are, for the most part, in a different style of the original CD. I guess the best way to describe it is to say it’s kind of like if the cast of Glee did a cover of American Idiot. But, guess what? I love it and can’t get enough of it, just like the original CD. It is a way for me to fall in love with it all over again, kinda like an old married couple who renews their vows and takes a new honeymoon.

Could this be the start of my love affair with musicals? Well, probably not, but I no longer hate them and have a new appreciation for them and can certainly see myself going to more in the future.

I don’ t know about you, but I had a fairly busy weekend. Friday night I played some dealer’s choice poker at a friend’s house. I guess I would call it playing from the stand point that I took part, but honestly, I was awful and got my ass kicked, but had fun. Go figure. Such is the way things are with poker though.

Yesterday after getting my oil changed during the day, I had a party/bbq to go to at 4:30 and another poker game at 7 in the pm. I got to the party pretty much right on time but it was fucking pouring out. Actually, it poured for quite some time and pretty damn hard at times. Eventually it did stop and I was able to rudely eat and run with the promise to come back after I got my ass kicked at poker. The poker game was only five miles away and I went, lost in about 20 minutes and was back at the party in about an hour and a half. Fuck I suck at cards. The rest of the party was pretty fun though as we hung out until after 3 in the morning.

Today was our annual family reunion on my dad’s side of the family. And you know what that means: I was gonna get laid! Heeeeeyyyyyy ooooohhhhhhh!!!

Every family has their sport that they play. For the Kennedys, it is touch football. For the Bushes, it is drinking and driving. And for my family, it’s 16 inch, Chicago style softball. This year we had a pretty big game; a total of 12 on 12. I actually was asked to be one of the captains for the game. Long game short, somehow my team managed to win. Yay me, that means that I’m not kicked out of the family!

One of my distant cousins had an acoustic guitar that he brought to the reunion. He is 17, has the same name as me by the way, and had just learned to play guitar about a year ago. The guitar he was using was his great grandfather’s guitar and was probably 60 or 70 years old, however it was in great condition and looked fairly new. He didn’t know how to play many songs, so I told him that by next year he would have to learn how to play some Sublime and Violent Femmes songs along with Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” because if you don’t learn that song then you might as well not even bother picking up a guitar. Now he had never heard of Sublime or the Femmes or so he thought. A couple of hours later he said he knew another song but didn’t know the name of it or who sings it. Turned out to be the Femmes “Blister In The Sun“. I guess that just leaves Sublime and “Brown Eyed Girl” left to learn.

Why is it that every fucking asshole now has a tattoo or 15. Back in the day, tattoos were cool because so few people had them but now everybody has them. I used to want a tattoo, but the uniqueness of a tattoo has worn off because, everybody has one. And what’s worse is that most of them don’t seem to be original in the least. I swear to fuck, if I see another dipshit moron with a fucking tribal tattoo I’m going to point at him, laugh, and tell him he looks like a fucking jackass. Okay maybe I won’t do that for fear of getting my ass kicked. But, rest assured, I will certainly think it.

I’ve been told that getting a tattoo is addicting; that once you get your first one you want to get more and more and more and so on. So then you have these losers who have tattoos up and down both of their arms, on their chest, on their back, pretty much everywhere on their body but their taint between their genitals and asshole, or the area that I like to refer to as the neutral zone. It’s disgusting and unattractive. You can be the hottest person in the fucking world, but that many tattoos is a turn off. Furthermore, the tats seem to run into each other and they look like a fucking mess. It’s like their whole body is a disorganized puzzle. I know a lot of people get tattoos of something that is important and meaningful to them but honestly, how meaningful can it be if it shares space with the other 500 ‘meaningful” things in your life.

I guess tattoos are a sign of rebelion and youthfulness, which is fine and all. But these very same people who have the tattoos think they are really fucking special and different from the rest of the world because they have a tattoo, well guess fucking what, you aren’t so special now that, oh, EVERYBODY HAS ONE. It used to be that only bikers and sailors got them.  Then rock stars. Then all of  a sudden athletes started getting them. Then movie stars. Now you can’t take a piss without running into somebody on your way to the bathroom, actually in the bathroom, and on your way away from the bathroom who has at least one tattoo. And that is at work. In a bar? Forget about it, shit being tattooless makes you stick out like a black person at a NASCAR race.

What is amazing is just how damn cool these people think they are. What is it about tattoos that make people think they are bad asses? Is it the pain? Maybe the blood? Shit, it can’t be the ink, fuck, all of us have had something drawn on them at some point in their life. Getting a tattoo doesn’t make you a bad ass. Hell, I don’t know what makes a bad ass a bad ass, shit, I’m about as far away from being a bad ass as a fucking boy scout, but I do know tattoos don’t equal bad ass.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pierce my cock hole; nothing says bad ass like having so many piercings that you have to resort to piercing your cock!

I read something today that said that the average adult laughs 15-100 times a day, while the average six year old laughs 300 times a day. Wow, 300 times a day, that is fucking great. And for those of you that laugh only 15 times a day, shit, you must live miserable fucking lives. I also read that, big shock, laughing is a great way to relieve stress.

For me the two biggest stress relievers are laughing and orgasms. They are also the two things that humans do that you can’t possibly describe how they feel; they are just things you have to experience for yourself to understand. And honestly, who doesn’t enjoy laughing or orgasms. If you don’t enjoy both, than you are probably not somebody that I would ever want to meet as you would just simply be too damn depressing to be around.

One of the problems with the world is that not enough people are getting enough of both. This is one of the many reasons why weed should be legal. Look, everybody always laughs their asses off when stoned. And most stoners are basically peaceful people, especially when they are baked. I mean, could you imagine how much better the world would be if everybody got stoned and had orgasms at least 3-5 times a week? I guaranfuckingtee you stress levels would go down considerably as would violence. Nobody wants to fight when they are stoned; for the most part they wanna fuck. Okay, so they wanna fuck all the time even without the weed, but with the pot they laugh their asses off first.

So I say everybody should toke and tug: toke the weed and tug the cock. Or for females they can toke and poke. Wow, that sounds like a great motto; hell I think this whole thing could catch on with catch lines like that.