Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.
I say it because I mean it, and I said it because I meant it.
-TJ
Aug 072010
Jul 172010
I think I will more openly vocalize my thoughts and feelings. I know I’ve said this before, but there’s a sort of glass ceiling when it comes to what I put on this blog. I feel like I pour my soul out every time I type something in this edit box in WordPress, but whenever I look at what I’ve put up I feel like it’s not even 30% of everything I’m thinking. I still censor. I’m still afraid to be wrong, still afraid of the consequences.
Well, consequences be damned. Better to live honest and free than as a shade of what could be, in constant fear of the specter of failure.
Anyway, poets shouldn’t have all the fun… of contemplating love. Shouldn’t engineers and socially awkward people get a chance, too? I fear that these exercises in exploring the possibility of that which may never come is a recipe for eventual heartbreak, but oh how I want to live in that time! At this very moment I need this release, and I feel releasing these feelings to outer space is the only other alternative to pinning them on the person of my affection when she declares she is not yet ready for such things.
God, I feel corny. Well, time to revel in my corniness!
-TJ
I just want to say this one thing right here, because I haven’t seen it said and I don’t think alot of people are thinking about it.
Let me make notes in my eBook, and by extension on my PDFs, PostScripts, and whatever else is supposed to electronically replace paper.
Let’s figure out how to make this work. We keep talking about the price of the Kindle/Nook/iPad/whatevertheFUCK going down, and how in the US it’s an X Billion dollar industry or what have you, but this solution will never replace paper until I can WRITE ON IT!!!
YES that warranted the Caps Lock and multiple exclamations! I have a library of books whose information I want to keep but paper I want to recycle, because honestly I haven’t cracked them open in years but I know at some point I will want to reference them. I don’t have an attic or library, and I move alot, which means I’m lugging this library around alot. I don’t need the paper, all I need is the information.
So let me get eBook versions of these books, and let me write in those eBook versions. Fuck it, don’t even let me get eBooks of books I already bought, just give me the capability to do this with future textbooks! Please!
Sigh. Thank you.
-TJ
Jul 082010
I don’t know how to say “from Quebec” in Quebecois. Hell, I can’t even say “Bonjour” right.
So, I’ve been trying to pay attention to people as I walk past them around here, and it almost looks like they try their best not to make eye contact with strangers, mostly looking at the ground or straight ahead. I asked an English-speaking Quebecois woman yesterday if it was considered polite to greet people on the street, and she gave me a look of amused bewilderment. I don’t know if that’s just because we’re in the city, or if that’s how Quebecois are… I guess if I were in NYC or LA it would be the same. Still, I’ve been trying to greet folks who look at me… I’m trying to be a good example of an American tourist.
Ahh, the cultural norm. Apparently there’s a ministry of culture here in Quebec–like the one in France–that makes sure that things stay French around here. I went out to dinner with my friends and one of Lorenzo’s co-workers (she used to work on Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, and Warhammer) and I guess she is a Quebec native. She was enlightening us to the quirks of Quebec culture, having worked in both America and Quebec. Apparently, there’s a rule in Quebec that says if a company doesn’t have a certain percentage of English-speaking employees, no English software can be installed to the computers… it has to be all French. Also, some Quebecois take offense when they’re spoken to in English. Don’t think this as weird, though… I work in an environment where people get “mad” when you send them emails that don’t apply to them, and people still feel a need to classify me as a race, when I am but a simple American.
Anyway, additional things I’ve noticed… Quebecois are quiet. Quebec City is quiet. I was in downtown (“Centre-ville”) yesterday afternoon, walking down the sidewalk, and realized I wasn’t hearing a ton of cars, honking, or people chattering on their phones or to each other. I actually passed a group of people and it seemed like they were having regular conversation, but they were quite low-volume. I know when I BS with my friends I’m pretty loud. Maybe it’s just me. Also, the people here aren’t as fat as in America. I hate to say it, but alot of the girls here are quite decent. At times it seems like I’m near a Yoga school or something the way all these fit girls are walking around, but it’s pretty much like that everywhere around here. Lorenzo suggested a couple times that the Quebecois in general don’t eat as much per meal, and joked that they shiver alot in the winter. We figured this out yesterday though, the people here in the city walk alot. There aren’t as many single-passenger vehicles zooming around the streets of the provincial capital. I went for a walk not too long after I parked my mechanical companion Flying Horse, and I agree… these folks are doing something right. I wouldn’t mind doing a little foreign exchange up here sometime, just to see a different way of life. Being here makes me think of the book I read not too long ago, Whole Earth Discipline, by Stewart Brand. At one point, Brand talks about how the slums in India are notable because of the way they’ve evolved… they’re quite “walkable”, i.e. to go about your daily life you don’t need to have a car or some kind of mode of travel other than your own two feet. The stores and jobs are all distributed such that people don’t need to go very far from their homes to get to them. I’ve also seen a walkability rating on some real estate websites, which measure how much you don’t have to use your car to get around–can you walk to the store? Can you walk to an entertainment venue nearby? Are there parks to visit within walking distance? I applaud this. I think everybody–not just Americans–can use more left, right, left in their lives. If America wants better looking people, then let’s weave fitness into our daily routine. I’m not talking about “setting aside” a few minutes each day to get daily physical activity, but more like let’s figure out how to get the offices near the residential neighborhoods. We reduce vehicle commuter traffic, increase foot traffic, make tighter-knit communities (because instead of honking at each other and submitting to our road rage we can greet each other as we walk past each other on the street), and some other things I can’t think of at the moment. I want to do this for Dayton at the very least… no better time to start restructuring and shaking things up than now, when we’re considered the 5th emptiest city in America. And I just thought of this… what if instead of work-at-home, we could distribute work to satellite offices? People could telecommute from an office that’s very close to their home! I’m a motherfucking genius. You’re welcome.
Humility aside, I think there’s alot of things people can learn when they travel. Each time I take these trips, I try to figure out what the edge of my comfort zone is and creep right up to that edge–I’m not one of these people who place themselves in extreme discomfort just to learn a new thing… you won’t catch this guy wading in the jungle rivers of South America anytime soon. When I’m at the edge of my comfort zone, and I take the time to reacquaint myself, I find that the next time I look around my comfort zone has expanded, and I’m able to go explore more things.
Today… Quebec City. As soon as my laundry is done, that is. Let’s go, Quebecois Dryer, I really don’t have all day!
-TJ
Jun 272010
Today’s post is a message to my friend Val, but most likely other people may benefit from the suggestion. At least, that’s what I think, anyway. Continue reading »
First off: Damn. I don’t care what anyone says, this girl is fine.
I actually didn’t see a picture of Ms. Rima Fakih before I googled her name, but rather an article headline noted that an Arab-American won Miss USA. Of course, this sets off all sorts of threads for further research–popular reaction, who applauds her achievement, who doesn’t, what people are saying, how misguided people’s comments are… the list goes on. I think it’s fun to read comments and gauge how narrow-minded that particular person is, be they American, immigrant, Christian, Muslim, whatever. In some cases it’s easy, and in some cases it’s not.
Since this is my blog, here are my 2 cents on this.
- I’m glad that she won. I’m sure she worked hard and sacrificed a good amount of her time to building the proper body and poise to win Miss USA, otherwise she wouldn’t have won. Working hard for something and achieving your goals is the no-shit barebones American Success Story. And yes… that spells ASS.
- For all the bellyaching that some people do about the judges weighing too heavily on a contestant’s personal ideology (backlash vs the contestant who spoke out against gay marriage, or backlash vs the contestant who spoke out in favor of the Arizona immigration law), those people have to remember that just because the contest is called “Miss USA”, it doesn’t mean it’s actually endorsed by the United States of America… it’s just a private show (“private” in the sense of private corporation, vs public, or Government entity). I don’t think I paid any tax dollars for these ladies to get crowned, so I really couldn’t give a shit less who wins. I just hope it helps the ladies out in their lives somehow.
I thought I had a longer list than this, but really this is all I care to say about the Miss USA franchise. I guess I don’t really care as much as I thought… and that amount of care was very low to begin with.
Congrats again, Ms. Fakih.
Closing thought: “I say alot of racist jokes… and my mouth says racist things… but my penis is a humanitarian.” - Dave Chapelle
Peace.
-TJ
Apr 242010
(Context: I just read The Pill at 50: Sex, Freedom and Paradox)
I know zero about the actual experience of sex. That’s just the way my life has turned out thus far, and that’s the point of view depicted in this post. I wouldn’t say the opportunity never presented itself, but that’s a line that ultimately I was never really willing to cross, no matter how much I wanted to.
However, I’m just one of billions of people who lived through the ’90s and ’00s, and have watched popular opinion on sex develop throughout the years, while contemplating my own opinion. I think in keeping with my commitment to figure out my “positions”, this is yet another one I will declare and stand by. (Remember, loudly stated and loosely held–facts will change or reinforce my opinion.)
I want sex to be not a big deal. Maybe if it wasn’t such a big deal growing up, I’d have had that experience by now, but as it is I’ve always been afraid to a degree of having sex since I’m not married. Mom and Dad never had “the talk” with me… Mom actually caught me–in a sense–with pornography and confronted me–again, in a sense–about it. So did Grandma. (And they still love me to this day… if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.)
Quick aside (or not so quick): So I had printed something out on an old Print Shop Pro program from a disk (that my Dad’s friend gave me, of all places I got it) that had crude, black-and-white, suitable-for-dot-matrix-printer-quality pixelated boobs and vaginas, and had referred to them as “spare parts”. I was 10, and didn’t know any better. I had stashed it someplace in my bedroom and forgot about it, and mom found it 4 years later, when I was in 8th grade. Whoops. Incidentally when she confronted me about it, she tried real hard to be disappointed but I just couldn’t help the ridiculousness of the situation and we ended up laughing about it. I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that my attitudes towards women is way less crass now. I also keep my porn habit at home, where it belongs. I don’t even bring it with me when I go to strip clubs or when I’m taking crappy pictures of nude models, out of respect for all people present–strippers and fellow friends/attendees in the former case, models and photographers in the latter.
Anyway, to continue with context, I just remember when I was a junior in high school that two “prominent” females in classes ahead of me got pregnant while in high school, and that really freaked me out. I didn’t want that to happen with any girl I would date/court/whatever.
So where am I now? I read this article, and as far as “the Pill” goes I think I would offer it to my daughters once she learned to deal with her period. Of course, I’d have to discuss this with the lady I eventually marry and hopefully have kids with, but my position is I’d give the blessing for her to use the Pill as an option, along with a good talk about abstinence, condoms, STDs, potential jerkwad boys (or girls?) who only want sex without an emotional relationship, my wish that whatever she does she treats herself with respect and dignity, and above all that I’d still love her no matter what she did. Sex shouldn’t be a big deal, or if it should, at least I would like to empower my children with a broad spectrum of tools necessary so that they don’t introduce unplanned challenges at undesired moments in their life–a baby in high school is probably not ideal, and neither is living with HIV or contracting mononucleosis.
As for me, I’ll stick with abstinence. The “chase for pussy”, when I look at it with reason and a clear mind, is really an empty, fruitless exercise. Sex can be bought, but love can’t, and I personally value love more than sex. I will keep myself open to meeting friends that I want to meet, and if a young lady friend happens to fancy me (and I, her), then we go down that road wherever it takes us. I’m kind of a romantic, and I personally would like that experience to be special, even if it will most likely be awkward the first time.
Now, if this isn’t an honest declaration of a position, I don’t know what is. I think I’m a sexual liberal, but my own choice is women, and I’m keeping it in my pants until I enter a meaningful relationship with a good one. What you do with your life is your own business, and this is probably the part that people care about more than what my own choice is.
-TJ
Mar 162010
My statement is formless, but a few things come to mind:
- Bruce Lee and the style of no style
- Self-fulfilling prophecies
- The power of accepting names (i.e. being offended by being called a “nigger” if you accept that word’s power to hurt you) and the dormant ability to shape one’s own reality
I’ll edit this article later, or post again about this later. I’m going to have alot of time on my hands for the next 2 weeks.
-TJ
Mar 102010
Here’s a short but possibly important entry in my life. This is my position on the “issues of the day”.
Gay marriage – Seeing as how marriage is more like a very expensive date these days, and how cheaply the straight folks of my current generation regards marriage, I begrudgingly give this a go. Let’s face it, folks, with divorce being common these days, I don’t think marriage is that sacred anymore anyway, so I say “fuck it”, if gays and lesbians want to experience the “blessing” of “marriage”, then more power to them. The reason I am “begrudgingly” is because I personally hold marriage as a sacred state which is intended to raise a bunch of kids under a stable parental environment. But that’s just what I want out of what I consider marriage. I recognize that people have different concepts of what marriage is or should be, so just because two guys or two girls can’t create more people to populate the next generation doesn’t mean they should have to miss out on what marriage could bring to their lives. Congratulations to all the gays that will get married someday, and advance condolences on the inevitable divorces that will happen as a result. Welcome to the new normal.
Gays in the military – Again… I say “fuck it”, come sign up and shoot some bad guys if that’s what you want to do. Or, like me, come sign up and be the shield for a nation whose potential you believe in. The only reason I have discomfort with the ideas of gays being in the military is that I get hit on by people I am not interested in, and this isn’t just gays, but includes alot of girls that just don’t cut the mustard. I’ve been technically assaulted by gays before–assault in the sense of if I literally spit in your literal face without your consent, technically that’s assault. Gays in particular aren’t like girls that like men, they’re men that like men, and they’ll act like men to that extent. But I figure, women have to deal with this kind of pressure all the time, there’s no reason why men should be exempt from it as well. No one likes to be looked at as if they were a piece of meat… I certainly don’t. Just don’t pop a boner while we’re in the gym shower and we’ll be cool.
Universal Healthcare – sounds great, but I’m a fiscal conservative, so let’s figure out how this gets funded first. Better yet, we need to figure out what the economic conditions need to be like to start developing the funding for this kind of program, wait for those conditions to manifest within our economy, build the funds to start this up, and then implement Universal Healthcare… I don’t think we should just jumpstart it at a time when people are worrying about the economy… as they say, I think we have bigger fish to fry first.
Abortion – Oh man. I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time, but people just don’t talk about this in normal everyday conversation without inciting some pretty strong feelings for and/or against it. I’ve considered this for years, and my position on this is that I am against abortion, but it is ultimately the woman’s choice, therefore I am pro-choice. An old co-worker once said it quite astutely: pro-choice means you’re for the choice, not for killing babies… it’s not “pro-death”. So you can argue that killing babies is wrong, or that you’ll go to hell, and that’s fine… that’s your choice. I support your God-given free will, it’s you who lives with the consequences of your actions and decisions.
Investment in infrastructure – Repairing bridges is something we need to do, and work is something alot of people need… why not invest in our infrastructure now, instead of wait for a bridge to collapse then react accordingly?
Nuclear power – In a word: YES. I’ve been reading Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto by Stewart Brand, and he makes a good case for Nuclear Power. Not to mention, “not in my backyard” apparently doesn’t exist among Americans who actually have a nuke plant in their backyard. Go figure. I’d rather use one coke-can’s worth of nuclear material to power my entire life than 66 tons of coal. I hear Chernobyl is turning into quite the ecological preserve these days, and we have yet to see any Ukrainian mutants.
And for my own issues…
In the Air Force, Abolish separate PT tests for men and women – I hate to say it, but if rockets start falling and I have to do an 800 yd dead sprint to a hardened bunker or something like that, it doesn’t become 600 yds for my female wingman, nor does the bomb slow down its decent because she’s a girl who’s in trouble. Male or female, the physical challenges of the deployed environment are the same. Additionally, I can think of at least one person who commissioned with me who I think is cheated under the current PT system because she gets a high score on the women’s scale with no opportunity to compete on the men’s scale. She can run laps around the guy that runs laps around me. The PT standards should be the same because the challenges are the same. Physical rigors of being deployed don’t change just because I’m a man, or just because she’s a woman. I understand that we are physiologically different, and it’s not fair and what not, but the asshole sniper shooting at us doesn’t give a damn if she passes on the woman’s scale but not the man’s scale… if she’s slow, she has a higher risk of becoming a casualty. Please let me know if I’m wrong, but this is something I don’t understand. To that end, I know a bunch of girls that would whoop my ass any day if we compared raw numbers in a PT assessment. Having separate standards just doesn’t make sense to me… all we end up doing is having weaker girls in a profession that doesn’t care what gender you are.
Unisex facilities - maybe this is the engineer in me talking here, but I liked Berkeley’s dorm bathroom set-up… there was just one big room for peeing, pooing, and showering, and the men and women used the same facilities at the same time. I’ve heard of terms like “preserving people’s dignity” and what not, but personally I think dignity is overrated. I already have to visit Jimmy Craig’s WangWatchers when I get called for that surprise “mandatory appointment” at 1000 (i.e. random drug testing via urinalysis), so some random guy watches my dick on a fairly regular basis. Add to this mix that we’ll most likely have gays in the military, so someday some gay guy will be watching my dick (assuming it hasn’t happened already). So again, “fuck it”, let’s just get this over with because this is the direction we’re headed towards in a few decades. I often think about the logistics of how this will happen, and I think I would bounce the idea of first making mens’ facilities universally unisex, then transitioning to all unisex facilities. I know this is a radical idea, but I think once people get over the initial… whatever the negative version of “novelty” is… people will come to accept it as a part of life. Besides, if gays are going to start showering next to me at the gym (again, if it hasn’t happened already), then I want to start showering next to women… that way everyone gets to be awkward, and we can all “get over it” collectively.
Phew.
-TJ
When I first encountered Michael Moore, it was through his documentary Farenheit 911. I was disgusted at the whole thing, really… I don’t remember much about it because I saw it years ago (at work during a mid-shift, no less), but it seemed like he focused on the seedy underbelly of government what with the aggressive profiling USMC recriters, or the supposed hypocrisy of the Senate for favoring war while allegedly being very far removed from the fight. I really don’t like Michael Moore. When there was a Google-bomb set up to link the word “Failure” to Pres. Bush, I joined the opposition that was linking the word “Failure” to Michael Moore. I personally think he is irrationally vitriolic and quite divisive.
I have no qualms, however, with his beliefs. It’s not that I share them, but as my friend Lorenzo told me many years ago, in America, “you have the right to be wrong.” I love this country primarily for that reason. As of today, I can walk down the street with a big sign saying “OBAMA SUCKS” or “OBAMA IS AWESOME.” It would be absurd, but I won’t go to jail for it. The presidential death squad won’t execute me for being an ideological enemy of the nation. I won’t get jailed by the local justice system that may disagree with whatever I’m yelling about. I can be wrong and protest about it, but that’s fine… it’s my right. This is why I love this country.
And this takes me to why I’m writing this note right now. I was reading his latest open letter to the President (President Obama, Replace Rahm With Me: An Open Letter From Michael Moore, it happened to pop up in my visit to news.google.com). It dawned on me that as much as I dislike Michael Moore, I appreciated how he fought for what he believed in… I respect him that much. That’s a quality that I want more within myself. But my focus right now is on the 36 pages of comments that are attached to this article. Alot of them cheer for this guy like he’s their savior… my question is, what do these people do on their own to fight for what they believe in? Mr. Moore isn’t just a loud-mouthed asshole, he does research (I know… it’s very little, and the results are questionable)… but what about the thousands of people that share his views? If you’re going to be a far-left radical, you might need to get some discussion going. You shouldn’t believe in a position, you should know it’s right because you did the research. Alot of people today say they “believe” in stuff. They “believe” in the constitution. They “believe” in global warming. There’s alot of faith put into Rush Limbaugh, megachurches, government, the effectiveness of universal healthcare, the words from CNN, MSNBC, and FOXNews (or Faux News, as some may call it). It’s not just the common public, but the 21st century version of the yellow press does it to a lesser extent as well.
My point is this, who’s showing up to the town hall meetings for the community? Who’s running for office? Only the most hardcore of devotees to the community who actually give a damn enough to take time out of their lives to work for the public in jobs like town mayor, congress(wo)man, etc. These people find a platform, be it public office, music, TV, film, or just a literal soapbox on the literal street, literally. You keep looking to a savior. I don’t normally finger-wag the general public, but I made the decision a few days ago that I would remove the filters from my brain to my blog, so here goes. If you’re looking for a savior to rescue you/your community/your state/your nation, you need to look in the mirror, because that’s who’s going to do it. Assholes like Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh are two sides of the same coin, and who’s to say you can’t become that asshole as well?? You literally have the power, even more so than He-man had “the power”. You can form words using your lungs, vocal box, tongue, and lips, and you can’t get into trouble for it! If the white supremacists movement can still hold rallies under a Black president, then you can speak on abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigration, health care, etc. and not worry about repercussions.
But don’t worry, ladies and gentlemen. I have a plan for all of us. I’m going to figure out how Joe Bag-o-Donuts can self-initiate off the ass he sits on (much like I do now) and become an effective contributor to deciding the direction of this Nation. Then you don’t need to look to assholes to speak out on your behalf… you can do it for yourself.
You can be your own savior.
-TJ