Why Bush Bashing Was Only Cool When You were 13

I apologize for my recent absence, I am taking an abbreviated government course and it’s pretty much taking up all of my time.  I’ve been sleeping, eating and breathing government and perhaps that is the reason for this post.  I encourage you to state any objections or support in the comments section because this is a controversial topic that I hope will fuel some thought.

 

People Who Don’t Vote and Bash the President

According to Census data, there are roughly 301 million people in the United States.  126 million of those are registered to vote.  Believe it or not, that does not mean the other half of the population is under 18.  It means people aren’t voting.  I’m sure there are good reasons.  You’re busy, you don’t have a car, you don’t speak English, or maybe you can’t get your fat posterior off the couch anymore.  Either way, we respect your right not to vote.  But if you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to bash the President.  If you don’t care enough about the elections to get out there and cast a vote, then you are not well enough informed to be able to make educated opinions about Bush, including what he did or didn’t do or you think should have done.

 

Everyone Else on the Bush Bashing Bus (and other alliteration)

Anyone else that thinks President Bush should be impeached or that he’s a bad leader, go get an envelope and address it to your local IRS office which can be found here. http://www.irs.gov/localcontacts/index.html  Then, put your stimulus check in it and send it back.  I guarantee whoever you thought would make a better President (ie- Clinton, Obama) would not be mailing checks out to Americans.  Aren’t the Dems the ones that want to reduce the national debt?  Yep, you go ahead and send that check right back and say you don’t want it because it’s from President Bush and he is a bad, bad man.  Also exercise your First Amendment rights and practice some freedom of speech in that envelope.  You tell him how you feel!  Just wait and see if they tell you they can’t take their check back.  

Okay, so now that that’s done and the government is getting A LOT of money back thanks to all you dutiful Americans who are working to reduce national debt, lets address the issue of authority.

What is authority?  It is someone who has legitimate power.  What happens when you get pulled over for a traffic stop?  Do you tell the cop that you think he’s full of crap and needs to get back in his car and drive home? I’ve never met anyone that has disrespected a cop to his face.  Why is that?  Is it because you like him or know him?  Probably not.  It’s because he’s in a position of authority.  President Bush is in a position of authority, too.  He is Commander in Chief.  That means, regardless of how you feel about him (and remember you’re 1/301 million), you need to respect him.  His job is harder than any job you will ever have.  He has to lead the world’s only superpower and thus, he has to also worry about the whole world.  He went to Iraq not to “force” democracy on anyone.  He went to Iraq based on the intelligence at the time and the CONGRESS (you know the one that Obama and Clinton were in) supported him.  So that’s 436 people to blame NOT one.

 

Everyone needs to just step off their high horse and respect the man that has to trim his nose hairs in the public eye and hope it doesn’t offend anyone.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I surrender the soapbox.

 

 

Sports Cars

I apologize for the lack of blogging the past few days, and if I said I’d been busy that’d be a lie- the truth is I just didn’t really get around to it.

So now that my laziness has been covered, it’s time to move on to other topics.

Sports Cars

In just a few short weeks, my brother will be turning 17.  It seems like just yesterday that I was turning 17. How time flies.  Anyway, when I was 17, my parents got me my first car, a silver Mazda Tribute V6.  It was a great car, I named it Bentley, and we had good times until I rear ended Mabel on Halloween of that year. Now that my brother is that age, it’s time for his first car, and since he’s already been awarded his first speeding ticket, I don’t think there will be any V6 engine for him.  The plan right now is for him to inherit Charlotte, the Honda Civic that runs like it’s brand new.  That means, little old me will be buying my first car, and I have been looking into the Mazda RX-8.  There’s a slightly used one I’ve got my eye on and it’s a real beauty.  The great thing about this car is that even though it’s a sports car and you pay the price for that in gas mileage, it’s technically a four door car.  See below.

The one I am looking at is black, just for the record- I’m not a fan of silver cars.  Everything else, is the same though.  So, those little wing doors are saving me about $80 a month in insurance.  For you car buffs it has a 1.3L R2 rotary engine with a 6 speed manual transmission.  It really is a true sports car.  Wish me luck.

 

 

In The News (my two cents): Miley Cyrus

The first time I saw Hannah Montana, I was at a friend’s house channel surfing late at night.  I don’t even know why I stopped on that show, but something about it must have caught my eye.  Since that time, I have bought every episode of the show on iTunes and kept up with it pretty religiously.  I even went and bought the second CD the day it came out.  

My thoughts on the show:

1. The acting is terrible, and BIlly Ray Cyrus doesn’t hold up his end- his acting is by far the worst of the bunch.  You’d think the one cast member with 25 more years experience than everyone else would be able to do a kids’ TV show by now but maybe not.  The rest of the cast is mediocre- but then High School Musical doesn’t have noteworthy acting either.  Not that the tween viewers care.

2. The writing isn’t much better than the acting, but it has its moments. 

3. Everything on the show is super colorful- which makes it look fake.  If they’d just tone down the saturation a bit it might look more real.  But again, how many tweens really care?

 

My thoughts on the CD:

1. The songs are catchy though the lyrics are not very original.

2. Most of the songs have very positive words and are easy to like.

3. Miley Cyrus is a terrible singer.  She’s on Ashlee Simpson’s level.

 

All of that brings me to my thoughts on the recent scandal of sorts started by her posing in nothing but a bed sheet.  First of all, in this day and age, who can blame her for thinking it’s okay for a 15 year old girl to do that?  Shame on her parents, not her.  Not that she’s entirely innocent, anyone who has ever seen Annie Leibovitz’s photography knows they have strong sexual overtones.  She should have known going into the photo shoot that it was probably going to make her come out looking like Jamie Lynn Spears about 20 minutes after being knocked up.  And really, it’s not the lack of clothing or the bed sheet that stuck out the most to me.  It’s the blatantly obvious sex hair and red lipstick.  I distinctly remember my mom forbidding me from wearing any kind of nail polish or lip color that was red (or any closely related variation thereof).  It just makes her look like a trashy whore, and is that what someone who is making $1 million a week from her wholesome image wants to do?

I doubt it.

The Problem with Lying

“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” -Mark Twain

I flipped on the TV today while I ate lunch and mostly channel surfed because let’s face- daytime television isn’t exactly award winning material.  The first show I saw was Maury.  Now, this is kind of a bad example for the subject of today’s post because the people that take their problems on to that show (or any show for that matter), are in a whole different playing field.  Regardless, the topic of the show was on cheating and the suspected cheater had been given a lie detector test.  A few channels down was the Tyra.  I have to admit, I’m a fan of Tyra.  She seems to be a pretty good role model most of the time.  Unfortunately, she stooped to Maury’s level today.  She was interviewing people who had been on the game show, Moment of Truth, and asking them questions about how it changed their life.  The girl I saw on the show was taking a lie detector test for Tyra to see if she loved her husband.

 

1. If you have to take a lie detector test to see if you love someone, you don’t.

2. If you have to go on to a reality, talk or game show to see if your significant other is cheating, they are.

3. If you are that desperate for attention, go the grocery store naked.  

 

Since when did our culture become so depraved that we wanted to watch this on television for entertainment?  We are quick to blame Hollywood, but everyone wants to be just like them and if we’d stop paying attention to their silly little lives, we would probably be a lot better off.

Everyone that knows me, knows I’m a sucker for celebrity gossip.  Why?  I wish I knew. Honestly, I’m just as much of a sucker for regular gossip.  So, a while back I nixed the Facebook habit and deactivated my account.  Today, I get rid of the celebrity news.  I am not going to fuel that fire any longer.  That, and I think Perez Hilton is what my dear friend Sedgewick would call a “douche canoe.”

Coffee Shop Observations #1

So here’s what I know about the people on the other side of the coffee shop I’m in.

They are grandparents, and their daughter thinks they favor one of her children.  They don’t approve of the way their grandchildren are being raised, but really, they are the victims here.  Their daughter is “an unstable person” who sends email messages to her dad saying “tell your wife…”  Apparently the daughter is a scammer and “it’s fun to watch her.”  She lives in Keller and “she’s always the martyr.”  The grandfather’s sister feels like everyone is looking at her.

End eavesdrop session.

First of all, these people are easily 20 feet away from me, I should not be able to hear their conversation, much less draw them a family tree.  What disturbs me about this situation is that these people are my grandparents age.  I’m only 20- still a kid- is this how people will be for the rest of my life? At what point do people stop trying to change everyone around them, and when they don’t change, resort to mindless gossip?  Unsettling.

Well, I have three websites that I want to finish today.  Blog later!

Untitled

This post is a collection of my thoughts after doing some people watching and is based off of a comment by Sedgewick on my last post.  If you haven’t already seen it, check it out, it’s the rather lengthy comment.

 

As near as I could tell, the guy at the table next to me had it all together.  He had a shiny new computer, a fancy phone, Oakley sunglasses, and keys to a new car sitting in front of him.  His feet were propped up on the empty chair at his table, and by the looks of it, he was alone.  To me, that was a simple observation, but to this man, an inescapable truth that had haunted him his entire life.  He thought he was good at covering up the void, he had all the latest gadgets, a great loft apartment on the trendy side of town, and a college education.  He looked at first glance like the type of guy who had more friends than he could keep up with, and that was probably what attracted the few friends he did have.  It didn’t start out that way.  In high school, he had more than his share of friends.  He was one of the smartest kids in school and didn’t care that being in the science club wasn’t cool.  His confidence was what his friends admired in him, and it seemed to sedate the constant barrage of questions about his mysterious family life.  His father had been an alcoholic, and his mother had distanced herself from him.  He was one of those kids that had been an accident, and though no one told him that directly, it wasn’t hard to figure out.  Still, he had survived the nightmares he had lived growing up and was determined to be successful.  He went to a university far away on a full scholarship.  On holidays, he made excuses to stay on campus.  As far as his college buddies knew, he had no family.  When he came home from school, he moved into the city and got a job doing what he loved.  Slowly but surely, he erased his past from his life.  He had come from nowhere.

 

To be continued….

Dominoes, Blue Haired Ladies and the Art of Web Design

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the maiden voyage of this blog.

I know the design of this site is template-y and that I should do better, but to be frank, I don’t have time to worry about that right now, so bear (or bare, if you so desire) with me, and I’ll get it fixed in the near future.

Part 1- The Art of Web Design

With Mother’s Day looming around the corner (for those of you who don’t know, it’s May 11 and I had to open iCal to double check), I decided to put together a little video for my mom with pictures of my family over the years.  In doing so, I went hunting for a pretty Flash template to save me some time (Mom, if you’re reading this- I love you dearly).  

So, I stumble into Flash Mint, www.flashmint.com, and it’s a pretty snazzy website so I decided to take a look around.  Everything seems cool until I get to the FAQ section.  

Part 2- Blue Haired Ladies

I don’t think I will separate my blog topics in the future, but I’m pretty ADD so this is a good way to stay on track.  If you know me, and I don’t know why you’d be reading my blog if you don’t but hello! if you are, you know what my job is like.  I spend about 20 hours a week at my favorite coffee shop in town working away.  (I do work more than 20 hours a week).  Anyway, this is a good experience because I always get to meet new people and I get a ton of work done since I’m out of my normal, distraction filled environment.  Regardless, some days I miss doing one to ones with blue-haired ladies at the Apple store.  There’s nothing like repeating “click on the Apple logo in the top left corner of your screen” 17 times while waiting for a prune-y smelling lady to dig around in her purse for her glasses so that she can see that the Apple logo isn’t just a funny looking dot, after all! (Note: some of the customers I had are very good friends of mine to this day and are not old or blue-haired).

Part 3- Children + Dominoes = Kernel Panic (error code 3126: invalid condom)

It’s no secret that I’m not fond of children.  I never got into babysitting, I don’t find babies cute, and I really have no desire to ever have them.  That said, I did host children’s birthday parties at a local pizza place for two years and was very good at it, so maybe one day my maternal instincts will kick in and I’ll want children.  Don’t count on it though.  Anyway, so I’ve been sitting in this shop for about two hours now, just trying to finish up some last minute things before the weekend.  This nice looking blonde woman comes in with her son and they order their drinks and sit down.  It is at this point that I start praying fervently that she did not buy him a caffeinated drink.  He grabs some Jenga blocks from the games section and starts playing with the blocks on the doormat.  Fine, whatever, don’t yell at me if I step on him on my way out the door.  That’s when it gets bad.  He grabs the Dominoes and starts knocking them off the table one by one. OVER AND OVER AND OVER.  And, as is typical with these types of children, his mom just sat and acted like nothing was happening.

 

 

Welcome to my life.