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Congratulations! You have managed to successfully clink on the link
entitled 'Blog Archives' on the blog page. This means you are
automatically smarter than 40% of the people on the Web today. Give
yourself a pat on the back (if you can reach it) before moving on to
reading some of my older rants and ravings. To the right (if you're
confused at this point, old out both hands, with the index finger pointing
up and the thumb pointing out at a 90-degree angle from it; the one that
is shaped like an 'L' is the left, and therefore the wrong side) you will
see links to other blog archives. Clicking on them will take you to a page
that may look similar to this one at first, but upon closer inspection is
actually totally different. For real.
Let's get those kids playing on the freeway!
 I was watching COPS the other night, and in between all the white-trash drug busts, the gang beatings, and the prostitutes, I realized what has been nagging me for years about the
freeways: they're all fenced in. Literally every freeway through a metropolitan area, to the best of my knowledge, has been fenced in. Then I got to thinking about other fences: schools, and yards with dogs. It looks to me as if this country has taken to treating children like we treat pets: fence them in and keep them under close supervision so you can 'protect' them. I think this would be a perfectly reasonable reaction to the increasing dangers around us if not for this one crucial difference between dogs and kids: kids have to grow up some day and be left on their own. Dogs can happily spend their lives bound in by fences (well, maybe not happily); kids will have to venture out of these fences into the real world, and I'd prefer if they were ready for that rather than ending up on social security because they had seven kids before they were 19, married some dude in a wife-beater and are surprised when he beats them, they have their $800 car
repossessed (or better- stripped and left on the lawn of the house they've just been evicted from), set up meth-labs in their living room to help pay for the marijuana their children have been addicted to since birth, or need to sleep on my couch "until they get back on their feet".
It is inevitable that kids who never had to make the choice between playing on the freeway and not playing on the freeway will one day have to choose between something obviously bad for them and
something obviously good. I predict that 50% of these kids will choose the wrong option. Given that there are some 10 million kids in this country (and growing, as the
Flintstone's vitamin commercials are telling us through a not-so-clever play on words), that makes 5 million drug-addicted-meth-producing-welfare-grabbing-STD-spreading drains on the economy when they grow up. "But Bob301, what can we do to prevent this travesty?" you are all wondering. I'll tell you, it's incredibly simple, it'll save the states money, and it even lets you wrack up extra points: take the fences down.
That's right, no more fences around freeways or schools. "Impossible!" some of you will say. "What about the
children?" others will lament (and those people should hit themselves in the head with a wrench as hard as they can). Not only is it possible, it's the only way to prevent this downward spiral of the potential of today's youth to become healthy and productive members of society. Some kids will choose to use this freedom to play on the freeway. Some of those will, invariably, end up as hood-ornaments (and don't swerve, people- do you
know how many accidents are cause because people in rush-hour traffic swerve to avoid hitting a rabbit that won't make it all the way across the road anyway every year? a lot). These are the kids who would have ended up in living in a van down by the river. Their friends, who would have been drawn down into the most base form of living, may learn from the mistakes of these others early enough to change their lives and not do stupid shit.
Finally, those who never had the desire to play on the freeway anyway are the ones who definitely won't die
from playing on the freeway. These are the kids we want to push into breeding before the other ones can, thereby weeding out all the ignorant and preserving those with common sense.
Now, I'm sure I'm gonna catch a lot of backlash from people who believe everyone should grow up to be adults, and from animal rights activists. To the first group: no, they don't. If people are told that the freeway is a bad place to play and then, seeing the danger firsthand while
next to the freeway but go on to play traffic-dodge-ball have lost all claims on the human race and should not be coddled and allowed to grow up- if they are, there's a chance they could interact with another person as
dysfunctional as they are, and could reproduce. This must not be allowed to
happen. One day, these people will be in charge of entire nuclear arsenals. Does that make you more confident about the future?
The animal rights activists can be cowed easily enough- half the money that would have been spent on fencing in all those schools and freeways will instead be donated to animal shelters. I figure this gives those dogs in shelters an average of an extra day and a half before they are
euthanized to make way for the next wave of doomed dogs and so on. The other half of the money can be used for improving the education of the youth so we can gradually reduce the number of stupid kids who want to play on freeways. This will get a major boost in 20-25 years, when those who didn't play on the freeways today have kids old enough to not play on the freeways themselves. Then, all that extra money originally budgeted for freeway and school fences can instead be given back to the people as a reward for not being dumb.
Updated: 18:08, 10/2/2003
No, I don't want to add chicken, I want a chicken burrito!
Listen up you late-night Del Taco drive-thru workers, I'm going to take this one nice and slow because I am absolutely unwilling to argue this to the little speaker/mic in front of the menu at 3 AM for the fifth time. I do not want to add chicken to the Del Combo Burrito meal. I want the meal with the chicken version of the burrito. I know, it's mind-boggling, but I'll explain it step by step so you don't get too confuckled.
- Every taco, burrito, or other that you sell has three versions.
- Beef
- Ground up, reconstituted, greasy mess of generic 'meat'.
- Steak
- Chunks of slightly more identifiable beef, possibly from a real cow.
- Chicken
- White meat that tastes good.
- You can order meals with the regular 'menu' combo of food, or you can get it with the 'Chicken' or 'Beef' versions.
- I want whatever I order to come with the chicken version.
- This does not entail making the food with that nasty 'beef' and then putting a few chunks of chicken on top of that.
So, when I say "I'd like a number 7, with the chicken burrito" I want you to
reassure yourself that this is indeed a possibility, and even pat yourself
on the back. However, if your first instinct is to ask me, in a quavering,
unsure voice "You want to add chicken on top of your burrito?" I want you to hit yourself in the head with a wrench, as hard as you can.
I'm sure most people have gone someplace to eat and had their order messed up at least once. It's happened to me in more places than just Del Taco. What really gets me is when it happens every night for a week and the exact same crew is working every night. Holy crap, can't you people retain even a little of what occurs in your life from day to day, at least to the point of recognizing that this particular special-order comes through every night, involves a 5-minute conversation on the possibility of swapping a beef burrito for a chicken one, and always, always, always ends up with a phone-in complaint
within half an hour and a free meal being promised for the next day? I worked fast food for a while, and it only took one order for me to understand that a drink in a value meal can be increased in size even if the rest of the meal is not, or that the giant cheeseburger meal can also be a giant hamburger meal. I understand that fast food stores these days are repositories for people who couldn't hack it washing cars or being junior assistant managers at the local drug store, or
for students. I'm even OK with that- someone has to hire all those people during national Hire the Handicapped day. But if you can't even grasp the most basic principles upon
which the business you work for runs, then maybe you should look to finding a job polishing knobs, cause that drive-thru headset is way to advanced for you.
Updated: 16:14, 09/30/2003
Damn, I need a digital camera!
I put that damn in there just so I can keep up with average swear word count per non swear word in every post. I have been accused of swearing too much, and I'm thinking about phasing it out. Right now, however, it's best to keep up appearances. But where was I? Oh yeah, the digital camera. It seems like everyone and their cat has a digital camera (or people really like to take pictures of cats). They take pictures with their phones, with their camera/video recorders, with disposable digitals, even in photo booths that use digital techniques for interesting
Photoshop finishing results. I don't even have a disposable 32mm camera, let alone a digital one. Often I have to scour the web for ages before I find another picture that I can use in place of one that I could easily take myself. I'm sure no one appreciates it when I take their photos and use them in my own stuff. So, I have set up the "Buy Cory a Digital Camera Fund". I was originally going to tell you that you can help by sending me money, getting your friends to send me money, or sending me your old digital camera, or buying me a new camera. I doubt anyone will follow up on this, so i instead instituted my "I'll buy it my own damn self, thank you very much program". This involves a little more work on my part, but the rest of you get to benefit from the fruits of my labor without spending a dime. This blog will look totally cool with a few pictures every now and then (well, maybe not totally cool, but we can't all have the best damn page in the universe now can we? I don't aspire to
anything so grand- I just want a neat little camera that I can take pictures of my
Wang with, then use Photoshop for humorous results. Is that too much to ask?
Updated: 19:14, 09/29/2003
Please stop blaming stuff on terrorism!
Holy crap am I tired of hearing about why this or that law, device, or tool is necessary to prevent terrorism (uh-oh, I've used terrorism a bunch of times now; some red-flag is going off in some Fed's office, and I'm being labeled a potential problem). Terrorism has been around for a long
time. A seriously long time. A history of how the Romans cowed their conquests
is a strikingly interesting view into the length of time terrorism has been
around. It will still be here in a thousand years- so long as people are free to
make decisions. Assuming people have basic free will, they can choose to hurt
other people. There is not that can be done about that without stripping away
the basic freedoms every person should enjoy. Sure, they can teach people
anti-terrorism in school, they can follow up on every purchase that can be made
into a weapon, they can monitor people's conversations for political discontent;
but is this what we want them to do? I don't. I "have nothing to fear if I'm
doing nothing wrong" but why should I believe that?
This is what really bothers me: the fact that I don't want to be watched casts suspicion on me rather than on the people who want to spy on me. The have cleverly shifted the moral opinion so they are in the right. Now it's OK to spy on people who haven't done
anything wrong, in order to catch the people who are doing wrong. I don't have to do anything suspicious to be under suspicion. That makes me very nervous indeed. Call it slippery-slope if you want to, but I think that is a very Orwellian Government kind of move. I am no longer trusted until proven otherwise- I am guilty until proven innocent. That is the worst injustice man has ever inflicted upon himself. Extreme xenophobia along with a justice system that puts the burden of proof on the defendant is exactly what this country was founded against. Most people read 'The Crucible' in school, or at least remotely remember the Salem Witch Trials (or the more modern parallel of the McCarthy Trials); this is exactly the sort of system we are moving toward. Do you want to prove that a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend isn't connected to activities the
government disapproves of? I wouldn't want to, nor should I have to. The new legislature constantly being passed pushes us that much closer. And who can vote against it without implying that they approve, on some level, of terrorist
activities? Only some of our elected representatives are willing to go before the rest of the world and actually stand up for voter's rights (and theirs, as well). Instead, the laws are crafted such that the 'authorities' are exempt from the oversight process- no one watches the watchers. These laws all get passed in the name of protecting the 'people' from the 'terrorists'.
I am worried that our rights to freedom are being summarily repressed, repealed, and subjugated in the name of protection. There are organizations who repress freedom in the name of protection: Mafia. "This is a nice [insert your name here]. Pity if something happened to it. For only [enter law repressing some freedom or
other here] we can prevent that from happening."
I better stop criticizing the government for it's use of the 'terrorism excuse' to take away our most precious principles, or I might be sleeping with the fishes tonight.
A new blog on a new page- let's vent some sexual frustration.
What the hell is up with always replacing the impersonal pronoun 'him' or
'his' with 'her'? Honestly, I don't see anything wrong with using her just
as often as him or his. But sometimes it's going a bit too far- everyone is
replacing the masculine with the feminine to show some sort of political
correctness or anti-sexism. It's a glaring problem, and one which I plan to
address right now. If you start a paragraph using the 'her' pronoun, use
'his' or 'him' in the next paragraph if you aren't referring to the same
person. Do this frequently, switch back and forth, but don't stick with
'her' through every paragraph of every document representing every different
character. It pisses me off. I'm a guy- I like to feel included in whatever
I'm reading. Why does the boss always have to be female now? Aren't
there any men left in charge, anywhere? Let me check- why yes, there are
still men in charge of things. You aren't doing anyone a favor by denying
that- nor should you try. What the hell is so wrong about being male?
Nothing- there's nothing wrong with it at all. I don't want to start some
sexist flame war, or a discussion about the relative merits of each sex. I
don't really care about emotional stability, strengths or weaknesses, or any
of the other crap that has historically been flung from both sides at each
other. I think it's plain that, as a species, both sexes are required.
Period. So, let's go through just a typical example of what I'm on about.
This is an excerpt from a page I was reading just today:
A true OSS geek, especially one who has
grown up with Linux since its inception, will be completely comfortable with
compiling her own software. She'll be used to editing configuration files
and piecing together a Linux system that does precisely what she wants. If
she uses a GUI, she may prefer a "lighter" one such as IceWM, as opposed to
the "heavier" (but more Windows-like) KDE or Gnome.
A Windows user will not; she'll
want something that pretty much runs out of the box with minimal fuss. The
Windows user will be looking for something familiar, something that she can
use from day one to keep browsing, writing and working, without a
steep learning curve.
In plain Ingles: she's not going to
go without email for a week while she learns how to use Mutt!
So, let's count how many times SHE was referenced....9 times. And,
they're saying she's a geek. Now, I don't doubt that there are female geeks,
but the general perception of the geek is male- why change that? I'd be
willing to bet that, on average, the male to female ratio at a geek event
such as a comic, sci-fi, or tech convention is very high, at least 3-to1
(that is excluding booth-bimbos and the like). What does that tell us? The
key demographic (Well wait a sec for the slower ones to look that word up
(hint: try google.com).....OK, we'll continue now) reading this particular
website will likely be male, based on my completely made-up ratio of three
male geeks to one female geek. So, assuming the writer knows this, why try
to distance the majority of readers by using an impersonal pronoun which
expressly excludes them? Because of this drive to prove that they are just
as pro-feminism as the next author? Give me a freakin' break.
What do I, as a crusader against all that is inane, plan to do about
this? Simple- every thing I write referencing a fictitious impersonal
example-being (or FIEB) will switch as equally as possible between the male
and female impersonal pronouns. I suggest you all try the same and quit
alienating your readers by always excluding them (even by implication). This
way, the three ladies who actually read your site will feel just as included
as the five or six guys.
That is all.
Updated: 16:05, 09/21/2003
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