Bloody Bell Ringer Found Murdred By Bell!

Tis the season for BAH HUMBUG!

The holiday is upon us again, but before you suspect me to launch into a tirade of slander against all that is Christmas hold your breath. This may come as a surprise that I don’t mind Christmas all that much. Sure the idea that we as a society know that Jesus was born on December 25th at 0 bc is a little insane… or a shit ton insane and arrogant by anyone too claim. No, I’m not going to lash out against that creepy B&E loving velvet wearing bastard. Instead this will be a blog that spans a bit of the spectrum of things I like and a few I dislike.

Let’s see, to start with something I like? Or dislike?…… Ah! First let’s talk about something I like. I love the cold weather! From early childhood I’ve always wanted white Christmases, a few have come but not nearly enough. I like the winter; it’s cold and brutal at times. But I have never been inspired more than in the winter when looking at the hidden life and potential that lies waiting under the snow covered land. There is something primal about winter that gets brought out in people, a violence that is brewing under the surface waiting to burst out. This is easily seen during annual Christmas shopping on black Friday and other sales events. Women yelling and pulling hair over a doll, fathers beating each other senseless over a Nintendo Wii, it is just brutal! Nothing says Merry Christmas like a bloody lip and black eye. Winter itself is a harsh world that brings out the best and worst in people which is too often forgotten in the summer warmth and sunshine. In a blizzard many will stop to help someone who has driven off the road into a ditch, or offer a coat to a needy person. Of course there is the other side as well that is our nature to self preserve which screams at us to not give any help to others and to take what you want regardless of who gets hurt in the process. I think this is where the violence of Black Friday typically comes from, along with the Christmas Eve shoppers. The attitude of ‘damn the rest, it’s my goddamn toy!’ comes to mind. I can’t help but see these shoppers as apes acting the fool for any willing to sit back and watch. The summer just doesn’t offer these types of actions. The sun is shining and the only worry most have is which lake they want to go hang out at this upcoming weekend. I like winter and its harsh exposure of humanity in each of us. Christmas is no exception; I’ve already touched on the psychosis of Black Friday shopping but let’s dip our toe into the water just a bit.

Christmas shopping, it always starts out for me as something I enjoy doing, but in the end it makes me a crazy grumpy bastard that wants to murder people ringing bells. When I start my Christmas shopping I spend time researching the gifts I want to bestow on loved ones. Toys for the children my siblings have, things my siblings themselves would like. But as the shopping continues I become the Grinch mumbling “Bah humbug”. For those who are early on my shopping list they often find themselves with unique and enjoyable gifts. If you happen to be at the end of my list… expect coal at best. I have learned in the last few years to pace myself for these experiences. I now know that if I go shopping that I should shop for no more than two hours and for no more than three people on my list. After two hours I become Mr. Scrooge yelling at the sales clerk that I would prefer those around me to die and decrease the surplus population! But as long as I keep my shopping limited to just a couple hours I can manage a few mumbled “Humbug’s” without too much fuss. Other than my affinity for being a grumpy shopper I enjoy purchasing things for those I care about, it’s just those I am obligated to purchase something whom I find their company less than desirable….anyway, this leads me to another item on my “dislike” list. Bell ringers!

I don’t hate many things quite as much as I hate the bell ringers. They are at Wal-Mart and many other stores which I try to avoid, I love Target for doing away with them! Thank you too whoever that person was because my restraint from murdering people is limited. Between the shopping and the bell ringing my boundaries of tolerance are truly stretched thin. I am not alone in this disdain for the bell ringers, many of you have felt the same way. Whether or not you will admit to this is completely up to you. I on the other hand believe that honesty is the best policy.

I hate, hate, HATE bell ringers! There are a few different varieties of them that I have cataloged in my attempt to distract myself from the urge to rip the bell from their hands and beat them senseless with it, smashing it over and over again into their ear screaming “It’s fucking annoying so stop ringing the god damn bell!”

A.) The pot smoking bell ringer.
These I don’t mind as much as others, mostly because they are too stoned to ring the bell and only ring it when someone actually puts money in the bucket.

B.) The slow and steady like a train bell ringer.
This one is like a constant scraping of nails on a chalkboard. I want to hurt this person badly, but not as much as I want to cover up my ears and run past them muttering profanities.

C.) The “I ate too many candy canes and have one up my ass” bell ringer!
This son of a bitch needs to die. This is the one that will ring the bell as fast as they can and wave it at people as they pass by. I have on more than one occasion actually grabbed the bell they were ringing at me and scolded them like a small child for being a nuisance to society, that they should be ashamed of their actions and that they could only have the bell back after they promise to not act like a damn fool ringing it at people.

D.) The “I think I’m Santa” bell ringer (I will kill this son of a bitch one day!)
This bell ringing asshole is the guy who attempts to act like he is Santa with his fake “ho ho ho” laugh and his insistent “MERRY CHRISTMAS” yelling while ringing the bell, attempting what I can only assume is music. This one sings to people as they walk past, attempts physical interaction and wants to “spread Christmas cheer” with his disgusting unkempt hands that have been places Thor would fear to tread. I have met only a few of these people. But each time I meet one I have the urge to punch them in the face steal their bell and run away only to return with that bell melted into bullets to shoot that bastard in the hand the next time he rings that goddamn bell! I would then of course run up steal that bell too and keep returning to shoot that bastard in the hand every time he started to ring it again. If he decided to sing a tune at a shopper passing by he would get a “bell bullet” in his stupid annoying mouth! Of course this is only the insanity talking that was brought on by the bastard ringing the bell at me today at the goddamn local Wal-Mart.

Merry Christmas to all each of you, yep you heard right. This atheist said Merry Christmas, I had one person ask me after I said this how I could celebrate a “Christian” holiday? My response was “when was the last time Jesus showed up for a Christmas shopping event at the mall instead of Santa?

Jesus Will Make You Skinny!

Yesterday I encountered a segment of the religious community that I had thought to be on the downswing. I was proven wrong by the infomercial of “Body Gospel Fitness”, a program designed to praise Jesus while getting fit. You only need to purchase the six DVD set along with the Gospel Fitness Band, Gospel Weight along with a few other holy tools to get slim for Jesus. A slogan I heard repeated was “through his power we will get thin, through his grace we’ll shed the fat!” Yes my friends your eyes did not deceive you, though I’m afraid that this infomercial was deceiving everyone that has either purchased or believes this insanity. Now you might say “Adam, it must be effective and blessed by God’s divine hand if it kept your attention”, not true I say.




I was at the laundry mat waiting on my clothes to dry and unfortunately I was unable to change the channel since it was a public TV. I attempted to be polite and civil regarding the programming, but let’s just face the facts:



1. I am neither civil to most humans.

2. Nor am I polite when it comes to stupidity on this level.



As I was sharing a table with a woman folding her laundry I noticed her watching the TV casually and could see the disgust in her eyes as she looked up from time to time. I could not restrain myself from leaning over to say “can you believe this shit?” (I have a potty mouth around everyone, it couldn’t be helped.) Now to say that I was wrong when I assumed her disgust was with the blatant prostitution of religion to the mass sheep would be an understatement. This woman’s response was “No I can’t, I don’t understand why they dress like that. Only their husbands and Jesus should see them like that, it’s a shame that it’s come to this.” It took a moment to pick my jaw off the table and reattach it to my face, but once that task had been accomplished I couldn’t stop the words from flying past my teeth “Are you fucking kidding me?” To which she stuttered and said “No I’m not, I think it’s wrong for them to dress like that.” I was outraged by the implied message that Jesus love skinny people more than fat people. I will be the first to admit that I am grossed out by fat people. One might construe that as me being biased or prejudice against them for being obese. I’m fine with that because as a human I am capable of such low and evil deeds that are petty and vain as disliking the morbidly disgustingly fat tubs of lard that sit on their ass on Sunday to watch the televangelist tell them that they are going to heaven if they just send $20.00 to his church. For a religious advertisement to claim (albeit subversively) that Jesus will love them more for being skinny is a moral outrage! That is the same kind of thinking of our friends the Mormons (who won’t admit but have in the past) believe that black people are loved less by god because they were at one time cursed, changing them from the beautiful “Christian White” to the dark color of the devil. STUPID! IGNORANT! MORONIC! MYOPIC! MAGIC UNDERWEAR WEARING FUCKING DUMBASS PEOPLE! (Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system.)



Where does the company behind Body Gospel Fitness get their morals from? What possibly allowed them to think this was a morally positive thing to advertise. How many people will be duped into purchasing this program with the belief that Jesus will help them loose weight? Ten? Twenty? Two hundred? No matter the number it is too many for this to be considered a good thing. I am in complete support of anyone who does something to become healthier, I believe in exercising, eating right and taking care of your body. But whoring out the religious masses to an idea like this is just wrong. Praying to Jesus to help you become skinny is just as useful as praying to the flying spaghetti monster to make you rich! It just doesn’t work!



I understand that everyone is out to make a buck, and perhaps if I didn’t have such an animosity towards religion I might let this slide (though I highly doubt it). I can only imagine what comes next? “Sin Free Peanut Butter! It’s sin free because it’s not chunky!” Or new “Holy Charmin” Removes up to 99.9% of sin when you poo! You know it’s working when you see the scripture turn red like the blood of Christ on the toilet paper! The insanity displayed by this harlot is beyond the simple lies of the church about what constitutes “sinning”, this goes so far as to claim that the love of their “all loving god” isn’t so all loving. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the religious community should get together and revolt because this person is using a form of coercion on the religious. I am saying that the choice to sell a product directed at a community with false advertisement is wrong, but add that this person is using the religious angle on top of it all makes me sick. The worst part of this program is that it is put together by a woman who was appointed to the health dept under George W. Bush which unfortunately lends credence to the accuracy of her claims that purchasing these dvd and products will not help you loose weight because it’s EXERCISE but that it helps you loose weight because it’s blessed by a god. How silly is that? I find that it is an insult to anyone who has half a brain to understand what this person is saying. She is taking away the credit and the accomplishment that belongs to the people who have actually lost their weight and giving it to a conceptualized idea of what her god looks like. I think that is just sad, she should be patting these people on the back saying “you did a damn fine job today! I’m proud of you for dropping five pounds!” Instead she declares over and over that Jesus is the one getting them skinny. How insulting to steel away someone’s accomplishments like that.



To return to the monetary portion of this topic, I would like to describe a couple key items that they recommend one purchase to get the most out of their time with god. First you need to pick up their “Body Gospel Bands”. These bands are blessed by god’s holy power to help you shed the pounds. Also let us not forget the blessed hand weights! Through the power of god these will help you fight off the evil of fat! Ok maybe I’m making up the slogans for these two items, but they are actually both available on their website. The trickery that these people are playing on the public should be criminal. There is no reason to exploit the public to such idiotic ideas. No man woman or child needs blessed rubber bands to loose inches. Any exercise bands will work, but I guess to be a good Christian you need to be a good sheep. Which in this case means you need to be dumb enough to purchase at an increased price what you could pick up from your local sports store for about half the price?



I’ve gone on long enough so I will close with this proclamation. I have stopped watching television on Sunday mornings. It just pisses me off.

Netflix Kicked God's Ass

Recently I have been enjoying a bout of writers block; it tasted slightly of metallic book coating. The flavor I remember well from my earliest memories as a child when I would bite the bindings on the books that had a metallic coated binding. I’m pretty sure they don’t make these anymore because of kids like me. Perhaps something in that metal has led to a bit of the mental state I find myself in presently. Thankfully though the other day I was having lunch with a colleague of mine and we stumbled into topics weightier than should be discussed over a Taco Bell lunch. During this conversation I discovered that he had recently taken my advice and signed up for Netflix Rental service. Those of you reading this should sign up for this service if you have not already, it’s the only sane thing to do and here is why. Netflix is better than god! My colleague and I delved into the intuitive nature of Netflix recommendation software and discovered a valuable lesson. God doesn’t answer any questions or recommendations you pose to s\him. (That’s right I used the famous “s\him” because though I don’t believe in a higher power I believe in equal rights to both sexes.) We set about discussing the two, God and Netflix and this is what we came to agree upon. God when prayed to offers no audible or visual advice nor direction. Netflix offers recommended movies based on any search you might submit but also based upon your viewing habits. God does not greet you warmly every time you return to your knees with a conversation about things that might make your life happier or more fulfilled. Netflix both greets you and warmly suggest movies, TV shows, documentaries and other things upon opening the web page. When a person asks god to give them understanding of Islam or some specific thing in the Middle East one is met with utter silence. Netflix though offers a wealth of knowledge collected and amassed for a person to expand their understanding of a topic in both visually pleasing and informative ways. God when beseeched to lift ones spirits often responds with a vacant empty void of none interaction. Netflix on the other hand offers you comedies that it knows you will find pleasing because it has a relationship with you that is both active and caring. God demands that you give up ten percent of your earnings to him and his church in return for a promise based upon fantasy and mythical tales of what lies beyond the grave. Netflix asks that you support them by offering ten dollars a month to assist in paying for the infrastructure they need to continue offering the quality movies and entertainment from around the globe delivered right to your PC, gaming console and mailbox. God hasn’t written a letter ever, not even the bible was written by its hand; only the scribbling of a nomadic people that have suffered delusions of ownership to an arid strip of land in the Middle East. Netflix sends emails asking about my personal opinion on the service they provide, emails on my birthday wishing me pleasantries; Netflix even emails me to let me know that it is time for the monthly billing. Much more than I can say for the Christian god who simply expects you to remember to deposit a substantial portion of ones earnings into a pastors pocket book in the name of a god who never sends a email asking about the quality of the sermon preached in his\her name. For yours truly I feel that Netflix has a much more active interest in my daily life than does god. It offers me great comfort when I come to it in my time of need. Netflix offers me guidance in things that peak my interest and communicates with me often and always leaves me feeling like I truly matter. God has not offered me any of these things in the thirty years of my life. Netflix has in these respects been much more god like than... well god.

By the end of our lunch my colleague and I not only agreed that Netflix was an amazing service for a great price, but that it offered us a real comfort that churches haven’t offered me or him. So I recommend that starting today we each start attending The Church of Netflix! Its slogan can be "Cheaper, faster and more interactive than your regular god!" I will be attending often and hope you will too.

Until next time.

Adam

Holy Crap I Didn't Die By 30!

It’s May and that means that I have journeyed beyond another day marking my birth. Thirty years I have been on this planet and thirty years has taught me much and yet very little. I say very little because I am now aware of the daunting amount of data available to learn and understand that it is quite improbable that I will ever learn all there is too know. I have received both adulation and consoling notes regarding my “youth passing” as one person informed me. The old myth that people turning thirty tend to experience an early mid life crisis is one I have not experienced yet. In fact quite the opposite has been my experience. I have a simple philosophy regarding aging. Whenever I hit a new milestone such as the age of thirty I look at it as a time of renewal and change. Change in a few ways, one I get to say I’m in my thirties, have no children that I know of, I have a steady job that affords me to look at porn as often as I feel is non habit forming and I am now aware of how much I have left to learn. To cope with the big 3 – 0 I have come to embrace the fact that I did the twenties thing for ten fucking years! It’s about damn time I moved onto to something new! For me it is like eating the same steak every day, yes it is tender and tasty but how long does that last before it is just a piece of dead flesh burned by a fire carelessly tossed on a plate and rendered monotonous by the decade of same ol thing? My twenties afforded me some amazing experiences; I learned what it was to blackout drunk and to wake later puking in someone’s rose bushes. I’ve learned the joys and shame of one night stands. Some of them are memories to get me through the cold nights and others cause a few cold nights due to the sheer terror of knowing what I’ve woke up next too. By the way I have also learned from those mistakes and haven’t made one of them in a quite a while. I learned that working drunk is not nearly as fun when you are twenty nine as twenty one. It’s amazing what eight years of drinking will do to damage a liver to the point that it actually becomes a living entity that has the capability to try to murder you and also telepathically say “fuck you, ya fucking asshole” for trying to keep up drinking with college students in their sophomore year. I’ve learned the pleasure of having a woman who can actually hold a conversation beyond the typical “what Slutney Spears doing at some award show”. I’ve also learned that there is a reason that young women prefer older guys, I’ve seen some of the guys in their early twenties out there at the bar. They are fucking idiots! I’ve also learned not to hold my tongue, refraining is not something I have become incapable of, I simply choose not to. I thought that today I would venture through my twenties and highlight a few things that I’ve learned and how I learned them in the last ten years


May 2, 2000
I reached the torturous age of twenty, I am too young to legally buy alcohol but feel like I am an adult and should be given the right to drink as much booze as my liver will allow before it kills me! I was attending college, occupied my time between classes and working for a call center that I had been at for over two years. This proved to be the time when I learned that you can go three days without sleep and function, but after about the seventy hour mark things get real fuzzy. Not fuzzy in the good way, I mean fuzzy in the fall asleep and not wake up for a day kind of fuzzy and then feel drunk for the following day. I learned that one can’t smoke too much pot as well. It just isn’t humanly possible, though I tried desperately in an attempt to be the first person to O.D. on marijuana. The only thing I was able to do was give myself the worst case of black lung possible. I’m sure I will develop cancer from the tar that is now permanently lodged in my airways. It is amazing how the human body can function after the abuse a twenty year old does to him self

I remember about this time I had the encounter that first excused me from attending church (told to get the fuck out and burn in hell) for posing the questions of Jesus’ ability to know all things? Whether or not he lied to the crowd gathered at his ascension? I posed that if Christ said to the followers there that they would not taste death before he returned to bring judgment on the world and he has yet to come back, does that make him a liar? The minister politely disagreed with my quest for truth and asked me to seek salvation elsewhere. I should have been hurt by being rejected from a church I had grown up in, but I’m the guy who at the age of nine was hoping to see Jesus come back as a zombie. I got over it pretty quick to say the least. Also this was the year that Coldplay hit the radio stations here in the U.S. If my life was to have a soundtrack it would be full of coldplay that year.

May 2, 2001
Twenty One, ah I remember the…. Wait no I don’t. I remember being pulled from my office by my friends and co-workers and got blackout drunk had sex with some girl I still have no clue was or what she looked like because my dumb twenty one year old ass grabbed my clothes, stumbled over the twenty some people in this barn house in the middle of the country to get in my car and drive home before anyone woke up. I passed back out once I made it home and was rudely woke by a fucking asshole asking if were dead or alive. Cops… gotta love them right? Once I answered my door hung-over and naked I was informed that I was not dressed appropriately to have a conversation with an officer of the law. I said OK and shut the door; the cop didn’t like that at all and started beating on it again. When I returned (still naked) he told me I needed to put some clothes on and answer a few questions. I did as he requested simply out of fear, being twenty one drunk or hung-over is a lot like being twenty drunk or hung-over, you are just not sure if the cop is going to take you to jail or not. The questions were simple “how did you get home last night?” I had a flash of brilliance and responded “I didn’t get home last night, it was this morning!” Of course being impaired as I was it didn’t register that the cop didn’t care when I got home but how I arrived at my home. “Mr. Garton, did you drive yourself home?” I was catching on and had the cognitive reasoning to say “I don’t think so sir, I’m actually very certain I didn’t drive. I was way too drunk after my birthday party and I’m sure one of my friends took me home at my request.” At least that is what I thought I said, turns out it sounded more like “I don’t know. Maybe I walked or something drove me” Since the officer couldn’t charge me with being an idiot in my home he moved on to the next question of “are you alright and were you brought here against your will?” This question tossed me for a loop “what kind of question is that? I live here, why would anyone make me go here against my will?” then it dawned on me, I left and didn’t tell anyone and no one knew where I was. Turned out that I left my cell phone at the barn and when they tried to call me I didn’t answer. My friends figured I stumbled off drunk and got hit by a car or something. It was nice of them to call when they couldn’t find me, but made for an awkward day of being pant less in front of a cop. This was the norm for my twenty first year of life. Of course we all experienced a shift in the paradigm of the safety structure we lived under after 9\11. I remember being on campus at my little college in Oklahoma sitting in the student union skipping a class to study and sober up when I watched the second plane crash into the towers in NYC. A sobering moment if ever there were one, I know we each can recall where we were at that moment. I remember thinking that if there were a god then he was responsible for the foolishness of his children's petty grievances. In 2001 the Lillywhite sessions from Dave Mathews Band never left my CD player that whole album is intrinsically linked to that year, though most would remember that year for a little song called The Space Between.


May 2, 2002
My twenty second year wasn't anything to write home about, of course home wasn't that far away as I had yet to escape the black abyss that is my home town. But I furthered my education and developed a few key talents during that year. First was the art of learning to accept I wasn't cool and that in itself was evidently cool enough to be considered cool. For instance, I spent that year trying to find my voice, be it in written form or through work. Neither of which proved to create a life of riches or fame. Looking back I am grateful for that lack of any fame or riches as I know now that I would most assuredly be dead by my own foolishness. Most likely cause of my demise would have been a nasty case of some undiscovered venereal disease which they would have likely named after me. Though as I sit and think about it, contracting the Adam doesn't sound as bad as catching the Garton. Though neither offer a sense of dread as I think about it, but I am sure there is some woman out there who would beg to differ due to my drunken stupidity from this year. Yes even then I was an asshole who couldn't keep his mouth shut, but back then it took a couple drinks to loosen up my biting vernacular. If there were a single thing I could say I learned in 2002 would be that being single and locking yourself away with a stack of jacks cups for sleepless night after sleepless night playing S.O.C.O.M. For the PlayStation is not healthy for anyone. Also G. W. started a war on terror then ordered the forces into Iraq for a short operation that we still haven't cleaned up. We all were learning to live with a shattered concept of the power of America and the security of our country. I remember driving past the oil refinery in my hometown thinking that it could be a target simply for the production levels it puts out of oil refinement. Fears of a young man, though rational to a point they were unfounded. Later I did learn that after 2001 the security at that location underwent major changes. In 2002 I discovered my love affair with Scotch and also my hatred of the fiery substance. I loved it, but it was much like a jealous lover, if you stopped paying attention to it then came back around she reached up and tried to rip your nuts off. As for music for that year well, I went through a Matchbox Twenty phase but often found myself listening to the Everyday album from Dave Mathews.


May 2, 2003
I felt like I had hit my stride when I was twenty three, I had found a balance in my life and also had discovered that I had learned how to drink at a pace and not end up a blithering idiot incapable of speaking to anyone. I was taking a break from college before looking to move off to whatever college might accept a social reject in the form of an ex home school-er who had a taste for booze and bad choices in women. That short break turned into a much longer than I had anticipated, no others fault but my own. I have learned a great deal from that time of life. Most importantly is that I learned I shouldn't have stopped attending classes as I have found it is ever increasingly more difficult to return for a different degree the older I get. Most importantly I returned to my religious roots and found that not only had I walked away for reasons of angst at the time but also because as I had time away from a religious diet of dogma I found a voice of reason in science and logic that dashed and crushed the ideology of the church I grew up in. I started my quest of discovery of the religion for “me”, I looked at topics ranging from Astrology to Zen. All of these failed a logic test in the sense that none of them made any sense logically in their claims of a god or enlightenment. Though to this day I still do embrace some of the teachings I found in Zen. Peace for me came that year when I realized that I wasn't going to hell as there is no hell to go too after I die. Oh sure I had a slight concern that I wouldn't get into the pearly gates, but I thought about that and realized I was simply being foolish for thinking I would have any consciousness after death. When I slapped myself and realized that I would simply cease to exist or worry then breathed a sigh of relief. I knew then that ahead of me was a lifetime of discovery and a quest to learn and to leave the world better than I found it. I think it was in 2003 that I started to become the person I am today and that in my early twenties I found myself not loathing myself for asking the forbidden question of “why” but embracing it and chasing stardust in the hope of catching a bit of knowledge falling from it. In October of that year my family suffered dreadful news and learned my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Things changed after that, death became real and it had a face. I learned what so many have when a family member of import comes to the end of their life. I learned that year that it was “OK” for a man to cry and feel all the emotions that came with the experience of watching a parent struggle with a terminal illness. I remember the song Gravedigger being played a lot that fall.


May 2, 2004
Loosing my father at the beginning of the year was an isolating experience for me. So much so that a girl whom I had started to care about but chose not to act upon tried to approach me after I returned to work. To this day I couldn't tell you what I said to her when she asked if I was alright. She told me later that it wasn't very nice. We started dating not long after that, she had a daughter and I fell in love and to this day I am still in love. Not with the girl I was dating at that time, but her daughter. If ever I was to ask for a child of my own I hope to have a connection like I share with that little girl. By my twenty fourth birthday I was more than ready for a change, which would come about before the end of the year. I would agree to take a leap of faith and move in with my girlfriend but it would be in Wichita Ks. I will never say I regret moving there, I found a town I wished to call home while living there. I truly had one of the worst and best years; I had lost a father but gained a family. But like all great loves that too wouldn't last, but we did make it past 2004. I had settled down, was learning what it truly meant to be a man and provide for people I cared about. I shared my income, food and bed. I learned more during the time spent with those two people than I had in the twenty three years prior to that. I learned what it was to struggle to pay the rent, to keep the phone on and how to juggle bills like I a pro. I also discovered a taste for wine which I enjoy now more than scotch. In 2004 I fell in love with the band The Killers and can't explain it as I typically don't listen to pop music. I also discovered how much I hated Los Lonely Boys

May 2, 2005
As much as 2004 went from bad to good, 2005 started out extremely good but faded into one of the worst times of my life. I rediscovered how bad it can be to break up when you are still in love with someone who isn't in love with you anymore. I had been through that once before when I was nineteen. Yes I was one of those dumb asses who knew he had found “the one” while in his teens. Though I never assumed that I had found the one at the age of 24 I did start to think that I could see myself with this person for an extended time. That wasn't to be the case, quite the opposite would come to be true. Breakups suck, we all know that so I won't bore you with the details, but let’s say this set the spark for what would become my world tour. I met two people who that to this day are dear friends; one friendship was based out of the fact that we both shared the same ex. The other is the friendship I discovered in one of the sweetest girls to have ever stole pajamas from me. I would say that I learned acceptance and independence, all the while listening to Greenday's American Idiot album which I will argue with anyone is one of the best pieces of music in the last decade.

May 2, 2006
Girls, girls, girls, is the only thing I can say about that year. I learned time management, how to lie and what a good cover story entails due to the fact that inside of three months I had sixteen different girlfriends and yes many of them were at the same time. I would say that I went crazy during this year, I had no regard for anyone's feelings and by the end of that year I had used a rubber duck in ways that no one ever should. But I did learn a valuable lesson in that nothing is beyond reach if one merely stretches beyond his comfort zone and into the danger of the unknown. I learned also that I didn't really have a soul at this point due to the douche bag I had become out of the pain of a nasty breakup. I did have a lot of fun and will not apologize for that. Many of the stories on this blog are from the 2006 and 2007 time frame. Due to that I will not linger here. By years end I had found that no matter how many people are around you, that if you don’t care about them or they about you loneliness is all you have. I found Blue October fit much of my mood that year along with I Hate Everything About You by Three Days Grace.

May 2, 2007
At twenty seven I had a breakdown regarding my age. I think this is why thirty has come so easily. For a lack of a better expression, I freaked out when I turned twenty seven. I realized I was no longer in my early twenties, nor in my mid twenties. I was officially of the age that I needed to take responsibility for myself and make something that resembled a life. That thought scared the shit out of me and my liver paid the price. More drinking occurred and that old “fuck you, ya asshole” was screamed loud and clear to me on more than on one occasion. By the end of 2007 I had rediscovered my brain and had started to cement my ideas on religion and was learning to accept that I was not merely an agnostic passivist, but an atheist with strong feelings against organized religion. I was at that time still formulating my stance and learning more regarding the historical facts and learning I was not alone in my postulating that religion is both false and harmful to the furtherance of intelligent thought. Though I kept these things to myself as at that time I knew of none of my friends who shared my desire to delve into the rabbit hole that is the argument of religion. The years soundtrack was both Foo Fighters and Dave Mathews Live At Radio City with Tim Reynolds. Foo Fighters for the connection I feel they still show in their music to Nirvana and Dave… well by this point his music permeated my life.

May 2, 2008
I had settled into a rhythm and had a steady girlfriend from the outset of 2008. Things were good on the romance side, I had reconnected with a girl whom I shared common interest and rediscovered the joy of actually having someone that would be around beyond the next morning. The area I was unhappy with was my work. I had bought into a contract with FedEx and was working myself to death. The money was good, but left little time for my other interest including a girlfriend who happened to live eighty miles away. So in a disgruntled state of mind I escaped and was invited to move in with my girlfriend. I know what you are thinking.. “did that dumbass not learn from the last one he moved in with?” the answer to that question is OF COURSE NOT! I moved back to Oklahoma leaving behind a town I loved but for a girl I was sure would be worth it. Six months later I was moving into a one bedroom apartment in the same complex I lived in back in 2000. Yep in eight years I had made it full circle back to the same freaking place I started out at in the beginning of the decade. What did I learn from 2008? You can't date a semi religious girl and be an outspoken atheist and expect it to work. I don't think the religion problem was the source of our demise though I know it didn't help any. A great deal is learned when you live with a person. Like sometimes they are content to live their lives just as they are and have no intention to ever move beyond their myopic world. For her it works, for me it does not. I discovered that I am not content with the micro world that is in northern Oklahoma and will push on until I move to other things in other places with new people. Coldplay returned to my audio system with Viva La Vida, an amazing album start to finish.


May 2, 2009
At twenty nine I was comfortable with who I was and what my opinions are. I started this blog and have experienced a very positive response to it and continued to be a voice of logic versus mythology in beliefs for my friends and those who have a curiosity regarding what they believe about religion. I grew comfortable in my own skin and traveled more in one year than I had in the previous five combined. I have been chastised for being harsh on religion, I've been called an asshole for brutal honesty and I have learned that I don't contain a desire for approval from anyone. If there is anything I learned it is this, not to apologize for who you are. Embrace who one is, all of ones self, the scars of broken hearts, the joy of love and the agony of loosing someone close to you. The good, the bad and everything in between. I also learned that one can always change if you so chooses. Though often that change is subtle and takes years to birth. If I had been asked when I was nineteen if I would be a staunch atheist who would view religion as a plague and would openly oppose religion in every form. I would have laughed, but replied that I might change my views in the future, but I would be sure there must be some higher power. I look back at that young man and grin because even then I knew that what I had was a false hope and a fairy tale, nothing more. My twenty ninth year of life was one filled with Dave Mathews Band Big Whiskey Album. Through this last decade I have to say that Dave Mathews has provided more music and comfort than any other source of art for me. He has provided a soundtrack for my life and continues to do so with thoughtful and quirky music that regardless my mood I can listen and find myself forgetting the stresses of life and identifying with his lyrics.

If you have made it this far you are a brave person who has far too much time on their hands and should be ashamed of reading this when you could be spending it finding out more about yourself. I encourage you to look back over the last ten years and see who you were and who you are today. You will be surprised by the changes you have made in your life in that time frame. I leave you with this one thought. In all one does, seek to do no harm but only good. For in doing good we build an immortal legacy that will outlast our mortal coil.

Jesus Has Enough Fans, Stop Asking Me To Be One!

I enjoy facebook, many of us use this as a tool to stay in touch with those who we would otherwise normally loose contact with. This software and others like it have opened up the world to each of us. Pen palls have gone the way of the dinosaur, being replaced by Facebook friends, Myspace buddies, Bebo connections and so on. These platforms have evolved in the last couple of years to include some of the most ignorant stupid fucks on the face of the planet. Everyone from me to Chuck Norris has a “page” to call their own, on a side note Mr. Norris just turned seventy a few weeks ago. I couldn’t believe it, and I’m sure there are some of you now wondering why I know who Chuck Norris is. I will leave that a mystery easily solved if you look at my childhood upbringing of oxymorons. Facebook has now become the largest form of video gaming in the world, it has more people “playing” games than any Xbox, Playstation or Wii ever could. If you enjoy Farmville on facebook like 83,163,740 other users monthly, you are part of the “gamer” world. Don’t even try to justify this and say Farmville is not a video game; it is by every definition of the term. I am not here to talk about how if I get one more request to play Farmville I might just stab someone with an ink pen or suffocate them with fingertip moistener (trust me, I could kill someone with fingertip moistener. I watched Chuck Norris movies as a kid.) I am here to visit about another section of interest to so many of us use on facebook. It is the “Become a fan of” option. I recently was sent a request asking me to become a “fan” of the page “I bet Jesus can break the record for most fans on Facebook”. Those of you who know me wouldn’t dare send this to me for fear of retaliation in the form of post on your wall regarding the similarities to the Christian mythology and the religious views of torture, murder and violation of human rights perpetrated by the radical Islamic society. Trust me this person received their just reward for “spreading the good news” to me. To start with, this page has a logo of a Non-Jewish Jesus which looks more like a white hippy than a zealot figure that started a religion which nearly destroyed the Middle East and still threatens to send us back to the dark ages instead of an intellectual free thinking modern world. Beyond the idea that they are miss-representing the Jesus of the bible (which is a bad enough start); they go on to setup a page for people to become fans of a man who claimed to be the son of the Hebrew god. Jesus caused mayhem in the Middle East, supported the oppression of slaves and believed the Old Testament writings were law and should be upheld, participated in animal sacrifices and died as a criminal. I’ve spent some time reading the comments on the fan page and it is a breading ground for two distinct groups. The first is the right wing Christians who want to pat each other on the back for knowing they have the world figured out by saying that the bible is the answer to everything. The second is the racist idiots that are attempting to stir up a reaction from those on the site attempting to tell each other how much Jesus loves them because they love Jesus and how the world is just perfect. Both of these groups are sadly mistaken in their retaliation against one another. I have read more aggression and hatred on this fan page than really anything else. Sure there are those that are happy to just say “Jesus loves you” and move on, but more often than not I am seeing dividing lines that religion so often brings. This saddens my very being. The fact that some can be so audacious as to claim that this man whom over half the world believes was either a simple man (not a god) or a criminal could and should have more “fans” than anyone else is simply sick. Why can’t people simply be a fan of an ideal, the hope of world peace, or a fan of not getting herpes from your girlfriend of four years who you think is cheating on you. How about “become a fan of not living under a religious false hope that a dead man will save your eternal soul and assist in bringing about an apocalypse”. Hell, I would be happy for a simple “become a fan of air” page instead of this nonsense.

Here is something to think about, if what you have read here upsets you, makes you angry. That I would be arrogant enough to post something like this infuriates you. Why is it that you aren’t upset that there are fan pages of Islamic leaders and prophets? Or at least that the same passion you feel about what I’ve said to be in some peoples minds as blasphemy be projected towards something else in the world, like the people who are being taken advantage of in Haiti? Or the squandering of taxpayers money on pointless bills being passed in Kansas to prohibit smoking in public without anyway to enforce or punish offenders instead of using that money to invest into the education system and thus into children’s future? Why is it people get offended over religion more than the true welfare of their children? These are questions that I pose simply in hopes that you evaluate what you are doing and why you are doing it.

Please stop “becoming fans” of pointless pages and take some action in life to better the world. Jesus has enough fans that are constantly asking for more people to become fans. They are called preachers! The world has enough religious fans, and not enough fans of helping educate the youth so they can carry on the research that will one day cure cancer. Just remember, gods don’t kill people, people with gods kill people. Think about that…. Fucking great, just got a “become a fan of the bible” request. Now I have to go tell this person they are a fucking idiot inbred ignorant fucktard. I will write again soon.

Good News Christian Nation! Thomas Jefferson is being pulled out of history!

Welcome back, I think it's been long enough since the porn episodes to let the dust settle from everyone asking themselves why they were reading my blog. I stated I wanted to move on past my world tour stories and into other things that have caught my attention. As you may know by now I care about a few things in life, education being one of them. I have friends and family in education as a vocation, who have dedicated their lives and sanity to the cause of bettering the children of today, who very well may one day run our country. I do my best to stay up on information that pertains to education in the news, recently I came across something that outraged me. The Texas State Board of Education approved some controversial right wing nut job changes to text books that are used in about 80% of schools across America. Today I want to go over the reported changes according to Yahoo News. I will post the link to this article at the end of this blog so you can read for yourself what I am writing about. To some these changes may seem like trivial things that shouldn't piss me off. But if you are a free thinker who happens to enjoy the idea of school being a place of unbiased learning of facts and solid theories, then you might be a bit bent out of shape as well. I have copied the highlights from the article below and my comments will be after each section.

A greater emphasis on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” This means not only increased favorable mentions of Schlafly, the founder of the antifeminist Eagle Forum, but also more discussion of the Moral Majority, the Heritage Foundation, the National Rifle Association and Newt Gingrich's Contract With America. ----- First off, I do not have any objection to a fair and equal amount of information from both sides of the political party represented in history, as they have played a part the making of said history. I have a problem with what they plan to remove and replace a large portion with ultra christian conservatism into a state and government funded education system. I further object with the Board showing an interest in spending a portion of a school hour talking about the NRA! What possible good will come from a teacher (who may or may not have an opinion on the NRA) being forced to talk about the fucking National (Religious) Riffle (Asshole) Association, what could they plan to talk about? Here is how I picture a leason going. The teacher comes in with a case full of guns and passes them out in class and says “Today's lesson is 'how to clean your gun so that when you want to shoot someone who doesn't agree with your political or religious views you can!'” Little Suzy picks up her first gun and adjacent literature and reads that the NRA are friendly people who just want to make sure that every nut job who claims to know Jesus can have the freedom to own a weapon that can end the lives of just about anyone they see! Good job republicans! Way to encourage another fucking school shooting!

- A reduced scope for Latino history and culture. A proposal to expand such material in recognition of Texas’ rapidly growing Hispanic population was defeated in last week’s meetings—provoking one board member, Mary Helen Berlanga, to storm out in protest. "They can just pretend this is a white America and Hispanics don’t exist," she said of her conservative colleagues on the board. "They are rewriting history, not only of Texas but of the United States and the world." --- Mary I can't agree more. How can we as citizens who go to the store and see isles dedicated to the ever growing multicultural society we now live in not be outraged by a few conservatives who were given way too much power and who are deciding to ignore the fastest growing ethnicity in America? I believe that any immigrant who chooses to make this their home, should be obligated to learn our history. But, does that mean that we are no longer a country that has proclaimed that this is not just a place for one race, but for all who seek freedom? From what I take from this idea proclaimed the Board is that we are to forget about the impact that our southern neighbors have had on our lives from the inception of this country and pretend that this is white American! I'm pretty sure the KKK are fucking holding hands and skipping down fucking redneck road with their NRA tattoos on their asses happy as they could ever be right now.

- Changes in specific terminology. Terms that the board’s conservative majority felt were ideologically loaded are being retired. Hence, “imperialism” as a characterization of America’s modern rise to world power is giving way to “expansionism,” and “capitalism” is being dropped in economic material, in favor of the more positive expression “free market.” (The new recommendations stress the need for favorable depictions of America’s economic superiority across the board.) --- That's right, hide the truth of a recession that the kids already know about because daddy is home from work due to his company shutting down because of the market weakening. Mommy cries all the time and they keep looking at apartments to rent because they can't pay the mortgage. “Free Market” ? Perhaps for the republicans who happen to have money still, but for us everyday people who work 50 hours a week or wish to work because we got laid off, there is no “Free Market” accessible to us. How about teaching the kids about spending their money wisely, like paying your bills each month and not using credit cards to pay for everything because that's what they are told to do by the MasterCard commercials telling them that “for everything else, there's MasterCard”.

- A more positive portrayal of Cold War anticommunism. Disgraced anticommunist crusader Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator censured by the Senate for his aggressive targeting of individual citizens and their civil liberties on the basis of their purported ties to the Communist Party, comes in for partial rehabilitation. The board recommends that textbooks refer to documents published since McCarthy’s death and the fall of the Soviet bloc that appear to show expansive Soviet designs to undermine the U.S. Government. --- Do you have any idea what this means? Does it means that we should pretend that McCarthy didn't try to be a tyrant who threw people in jail because he was on a fucking witch hunt! The idea of trying to portray a time in our history as “Not that bad” is a disgrace to the dream and idea that American can and does change for the better. Here's an idea that makes about as much sense, lets teach our kids that slavery back in the pre-civil war days wasn't really slavery, it was more like a bunch of friends working together and living together and that nothing bad ever happened! Sound ridiculous? So does telling the kids that the cold war wasn't that big of a deal and that the anticommunism that happened didn't lead to prison camps where honest working American citizens were fenced in and held like common criminals because they were Asian! How dare we taint the memory of those who suffered under a government who was so scared that they resorted to the same kinds of acts that are so touted as evil and vile when carried out by German Nazi's! Those who forget the past are condemned like hooded men led to the gallows to relive it.

- Language that qualifies the legacy of 1960s liberalism. Great Society programs such as Title IX—which provides for equal gender access to educational resources—and affirmative action, intended to remedy historic workplace discrimination against African-Americans, are said to have created adverse “unintended consequences” in the curriculum’s preferred language. --- Do I need to expound on this? I mean, really? “Unintended consequences”? Holy shit! Lookout a black man can ride the subway with a white man! What is this world coming too? Ridiculous!

- Thomas Jefferson no longer included among writers influencing the nation’s intellectual origins. Jefferson, a deist who helped pioneer the legal theory of the separation of church and state, is not a model founder in the board’s judgment. Among the intellectual forerunners to be highlighted in Jefferson’s place: medieval Catholic philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas, Puritan theologian John Calvin and conservative British law scholar William Blackstone. Heavy emphasis is also to be placed on the founding fathers having been guided by strict Christian beliefs. –- Does this not border on treason? How can anyone refute the impact that one of our founding fathers had then and now on this great country? To remove Thomas Jefferson from history books because he didn't hold the same “Christian” ideals as these men and women on the Board of Education in Texas is at the very least a mockery of the very freedoms that Mr. Jefferson helped pen. To strike his name from our text and refuse the children of America an education on the man who is stamped on both coin and parchment that those on that Board hold so dear is something that should piss off each and every one of us! I know that you might think that because many atheist claim Thomas Jefferson as one our own to be the root of my righteous rage at having him removed from the text books. It is not, I would be equally angered and outraged by them removing any one of the founding members of our country. What would you feel if you found that George Washington wasn't American enough to be talked about in school anymore? What would you feel if you were told that Lincoln was being removed because he did too much to help free the slaves? How can I not be angered by the notion of a board removing such an important person from history books? This is another move to force down a ultra conservative education down kids that tells them that this is a Christian nation when it truly is not! It is a free nation that guards your right to worship whomever you wish, be it Jesus, Allah, Abraham, Vishnu, Buddha, a jelly fish, french toast or whatever else you want to worship as a god. This is a great crime if allowed to pass into the educational system and each of you should be pissed off at this!

- Excision of recent third-party presidential candidates Ralph Nader (from the left) and Ross Perot(from the centrist Reform Party). Meanwhile, the recommendations include an entry listing Confederate General Stonewall Jackson as a role model for effective leadership, and a statement from Confederate President Jefferson Davis accompanying a speech by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. --- Oh this is a brilliant idea! Lets remove anything that doesn't conform to the two major parties! That's right kids, no more individuality! Lets all put on the suit and tie and be little robots for the government. While we are at it, lets add to the list of great people in the world to learn from Mr. Jefferson Davis who was a fucking Racist bastard who wanted to keep all his slaves picking cotton and saying “master” forever.

- A recommendation to include country and western music among the nation’s important cultural movements. The popular black genre of hip-hop is being dropped from the same list. --- This is just fucking stupid, and only the ego of Texas could propose this!

This is a fucking shame, a outright sad day for each and every one of us. Even if you didn't know this was going on, this is the kind of thing that happens and we rarely hear about it. I am not a parent, so I have little input into the educational materials that kids are being taught, but if you have a child in school and want them to have a fair and unbiased education please look for these kinds of things. Pay attention to what your kids are being taught. If this passes it's final stage and is accepted then one day you might wake up to your child cleaning his gun and looking at a poster of the NRA on this wall while singing Amazing Grace because he was taught that guns are good, he is a christian because this is a christian nation and that the NRA is the type of people we should be idolizing.

If you are a republican and are offended by my comments here, please contact me and I will be more than happy to defend everything I've written here. I will not sit by and remain silent regarding a travesty of this level.

With that being said, BRING ON THE HATE MAIL!


*http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253

Valentine's Day, Incest and Dead Goats For All!

Valentines day, a day for lovers across the globe right? But how many really have looked into the history of this romantic day? This day, when lovers all around the world express their love for one another by exchanging cards with poems, flowers, candy, jewelry or other things. This day when it is nearly impossible to get a table at a restaurant if not reserved weeks in advance. Routers.com reported that they estimate approximately 14.1 billion will be spent for this holiday in the U.S. Alone. This is an astronomical amount of money to tell your significant other that you care. Men will spend nearly double what women will and each woman reading this will think that is the correct and right thing to have happen. As a man I of course think it is total bullshit that we are expected to pay much more than our significant other. This issue of balance goes back to pre roman times though when it was expected that men be the bread winner and thus responsible for the monetary well being of the family. I won't rant about the issue of Women across the country screaming for equal rights and treatment and about how on this subject they amazingly stand silent and expect to be treated as more than equals. This is not the place where I scream INJUSTICE, or poor me that I am expected to show my appreciation and love for someone I care about by a percentage based upon the expected expenditures of the one I love. In fact on the contrary I feel the opposite when I do spend funds on one I am in a committed relationship with. In short I like buying stuff for my girlfriend. I will come back to this later on in the blog and explain my thoughts on the actions of Valentines Day.

Let's take a look at the history of this cute, cuddly warm butterfly stomach filled holiday. It's all about INCEST! ! ! ! Yep, go take a look back at the history before the roman church proclaimed it a day of appreciation. To save a lot of retyping I am pulling the bellow information from Wikipedia.org and references are available on that site to support all information bellow.

Valentine was a common Roman name given to the name of their children in honor of the famous man who was first called Valentine in antiquity, Lupercus ("he who wards off the wolf") the hunter, a god associated with the Roman god Faunus and the goddess Fauna.
The Greeks called Lupercus or Faunus by the name of Pan. The Semites called Pan by the name Baul, another name for Nimrod, "the mighty hunter" (Book of Genesis 10:9). A common proverb of ancient time was that Nimrod was "the mighty hunter before the Lord" and their hero and their strong man. The original Valentine was Nimrod, the mighty hunter of wolves. Another of Nimrod's names was Sanctuc or Santa, meaning Saint.[citation needed]
The Romans acquired the symbol of the heart from the Babylonians. In the Babylonian language, the word for heart was bal. The heart - bal - was merely a symbol of Nimrod - the Baal or Lord of the Babylonians.
Nimrod was also known as Saturn, the Roman-Babylonian god who hid from his pursuers in a secret place. The Latin word Saturn is derived from the Semitic-speaking Babylonians, means "be hid," "hide self", "secret", or "conceal". The original Semitic (Hebrew) word is "Sathar," also "sether").
According to ancient tradition, Saturn (Nimrod) fled from his pursuers to Italy. The Appenine Mountains of Italy were anciently named the mountains of Nembrod or Nimrod. Nimrod briefly hid out at the site where Rome was later built. The ancient name of Rome, before it was rebuilt in 753 B.C. was Saturnia, the site of Saturn's (Nimrod's) hiding, where he was found and slain for his crimes. Christians in Constantine's day made Nimrod a saint of the Roman Catholic Church and continued to honor him as a Christian martyr.
The Romans chose February 15 and the evening of February 14 to honor Lupercus -- in ancient times began at sunset the evening before -- because Nimrod -- Baal or sun god of the pagans - was said to have been born at the winter solstice. In ancient time the solstice occurred on January 6 and his birthday therefore was celebrated on December 25 and now called Christmas. It was the custom of antiquity for, the mother of a male child to present herself for purification on the fortieth day after January 6, now celebrated by Christians as Epiphany. Nimrod's original birth date takes us to February 15, the celebration of which began on the evening of February 14, the Lupercalia or St. Valentine's Day. On this day in February,Semiramis, the mother of Nimrod, was said to have been purified and to have appeared for the first time in public with her son as the original "mother and child."
The Roman month February derives its name from the februa which the Roman priests used in the rites celebrated on St. Valentine's Day. The febru were thongs from the skins of sacrificial animals used in rites of purification on the evening of February 14.
Another name for the child Nimrod was "Cupid", meaning "desire". It is said that when Nimrod's mother saw him, she lusted after him. Nimrod became Semiramis's Cupid. So evil was Nimrod's mother that it is said she married her own son. Inscribed on the monuments of ancient Egypt are inscriptions that Nimrod (the Egyptians called him Osiris) was "the husband of his mother."
As Nimrod grew up, he became the child-hero of many women who desired him. In the Book of Daniel, he is called the "desire of women" (Daniel 11:37). Moffatt translates the word asTammuz, a Babylonian name of Nimrod. He provoked so many women to jealousy that an idol of him was often called the "image of jealousy" (Ezekiel 8:5). Nimrod, the hunter, was also their Valentine. The pagans commemorated their hero-hunter Nimrod, or Baal, by sending heart-shaped love tokens to one another on the evening of February 14 as a symbol of him. Nimrod, the son of Cush the Ethiopian, was later a source of embarrassment to the pagans of Europe, not wanting to worship an African. They later substituted a supposed son of Nimrod, a child named Horus, born after the death of Nimrod. This child then became a "Cupid" of European culture and tradition.

This all is pre-dating the Roman empire rule and Roman Catholic church as well. So where did St. Valentine come from? Well that is simple really, there were a bunch of Valentine's around at that time. Though the church points to a couple men, first of which is Valentine of Rome, the other is Valentine of Terni. Rome was martyred in AD 269, Terni became Bishop of Interamna in AD 197. There is a note of a Valentine being martyred on February 14 in Africa with a number of companions but little else is known of him or if his death had any impact on the validation of this holiday. It is worth noting that the Lupercalia Festival was held on February 15th when sacrificial offerings were made in hopes of averting evil spirits and purifying the city bring fertility throughout. Goats and dogs were often the animal slaughtered to appease the gods of ancient Rome.

Now we know a little about where the Holiday was birthed and how screwed up it is that we can take a day used to celebrate Nimrod\Cupid\Horus\Osiris and his mother, incestuous as their relationship might have been and as evil as that might be, or that this holiday was based on killing animals in the hopes that killing shit would bring about fertility in people and lands. Which if you think about it makes perfect sense right?..... no, you're right. It doesn't make any sense at all. Maybe if you were into having sex with your mom at the age of forty days it might, but to me it's just a fucked up idea.

If we move forward in time to the dark ages we will find that this time of year was used for judging assholes who treated women badly. (Not a bad idea if you ask me)This is the birth of where the poems and greeting cards come from. February 14, 1400 the High Court of love was created in Paris. This was a time when love contracts, betrayals and violence against women were settled. Judges were selected by the women based upon submission of poems. Whoever had the best poem would preside over the hearings. So this is the basis of where we get our modern day Hallmark greeting card saying “Roses are red violets are blue, I hate valentine's and so do you.” Or something like that. It then became popular for those who were lacking in the area of communications to purchase a poem written by another for his love. So Hallmark came around and slapped a high price tag on a piece of paper with a heart that looks nothing like the organ we have pumping life giving blood through our bodies and tells us it is what we need to give on top of jewelry to our lover to show we actually care. (yes I am speaking from a man's point of view, get over it.)

So what have we learned, let's recap shall we? Valentine was a common name given to children. It is believed to have started with a great hunter from biblical or Babylonian times named either Nimrod(which I find funny because when I think of Nimrod I think of a stupid person. This translates to me in saying that if you are a fan of this holiday you are an idiot. Just a fun morsel to chew on while you continue to read.) or Horus, Osiris and later became Cupid who was so loved and adored by his mother, she fell in love and wanted to have fucked up incestuous sex with him. That had to screw with his head, I know it is screwing with mine as I wrap my brain around the idea that this holiday started out by something that is illegal in most civilized societies. It was a festival to kill animals and pray that things would be fertile, a time when judges were elected by poems and Hallmark fucked us little guys... wait that part is still going on.

So what are my thoughts on this holiday? Well I am of the opinion that if you need a holiday recognized by the government to tell you when you should tell that special someone you care, you should be ashamed. People are worth more than just one day a year. We should learn to show we care more than just when the holidays come around, besides don't you guys know that if you randomly bring home flowers or mail a letter or card to your woman for no reason you have a much higher chance of getting sex that night? Not saying that if your man randomly sends you something nice or brings home flowers that he is expecting to get laid. But that thought does cross every guys mind at some point, be it when they are pulling into the driveway after purchasing a necklace he knew she liked or when he got the idea of buying said necklace. Sex is always on guys minds, and I will be the first to admit that one.

Anyway what it boils down too for me is that I disagree with the Holiday as a whole, it is based now on something that is trying to be good. For some this works, but the history of the holiday just ruins it for me. I also disagree that this is a holiday that the government and business profit from by about fourteen billion dollars this year alone. So to close this out. Fuck Valentine's Day, you should buy your wife something nice because she puts up with your ass, and not just once a year buddy.

For Pop

Six years have passed and this reminds me I’m getting older. It doesn’t seem like six years worth of stuff has happened in that timeframe. But looking back, more than enough actually has occurred both in my life and the lives of my family to encompass more than six years. It has been six years since the passing of my father due to cancer. I just want to take a moment to honor all those we have known who have lost their battle to cancer. It is a disease that affects not only those carrying it, but their friends and family long after they have passed. The trauma endured emotionally and psychologically is something that can’t be expressed easily nor should it be. Loss is one of the most telling signs we are human, we mourn those who have passed on and do our best to honor and remember what they taught us. So Dad here’s to you…




When I was a boy no more than six or seven I remember my dad had a Volkswagen Beatle, it must have been from the early 70’s, in fact I remember that it still ran on standard lead based fuel. I remember it sitting near the street next to the sidewalk and I was running around being an idiot as always, I think I was playing hide and seek. From who I don’t recall, perhaps it was simply my imaginary friend at the time I was hiding from. (He was a scary bastard full of teeth and claws. Not what you imagine a seven year old has for an imaginary friend, but I didn’t pick him he chose me.) I ran behind the car and I can remember thinking that dad always worked on this part of the car and was always touching things back there. So being the copy cat I was decided I should emulate my father and mess around with the engine as well. Lucky for him I didn’t know how the latch worked on that old car. Unlucky for me though the tailpipe was exposed and without understanding the workings of a combustion engine I didn’t realize the tail pipe would be blazing hot from the exhaust. Needless to say my exploratory nature led me to grab the tailpipe and burn the hell out of my hand. Screams and sobs erupted out of me, but before I knew it Dad was there looking my hand over. Seeing that I really wasn’t too damaged, (in fact I didn’t even have any blistering) he let me know I would be ok. We ran cold water over my hand and put ice on it and we had a conversation. I remember him explaining how the engine worked and that the tailpipes allowed the heat and exhaust fumes to be expelled from the spent fuel. The lesson I remember the most though is he said “Son, parts of the rear are always hot when they’ve been turned on.” This lesson I learned applies to more than just cars later on. I’m lucky he never caught me grabbing another kind of tail now that I think about it. Though I’m sure he would have had something to say about that too which I would have found funny. Dad we all miss you and try our best to carry on remembering the good things and not the bad. I’ll always remember the way you always did your best to be the best father you could be, even when your dumbass son decided to grab a tailpipe.



For those who have lost someone I hope each of you takes a moment to remember that which makes them special to us.

I want to cook marshmellows over my laptops burning corpse.

I had every intention of writing about my world tour experiment, but I can't. Forces beyond my control have vexed me greatly and destroyed my PC's hard drive containing all of my wicked stories. Perhaps it is the cosmos giving me a warning not to air my dirty laundry to the world. Maybe it is a higher power smiting me for the life I've led up till now. Perhaps it's Jesus getting back at me for turning him into a zombie. I might believe one of those things if I were an irrationally irrational person, but I'm not. I'm a rationally irrational person who knows that my pc crashed due to the excessive amount of use I've given it, the streaming of many hours of porn, illegal media and stolen software downloaded from sites that give you warnings "THIS MAY CONTAIN VIRUS" or "USE AT YOUR OWN RISK". My dumbass decided that the risk was worth taking and it finally bit me in the ass. I say all this to announce that I will not be posting the story of Erika at this point, perhaps in the near future I will be able to continue that. My dilemma is that I am without a word processing software with which to write. So, I apologize in advance for any writing errors that are so blatant a monkey would look at them and say "what fucking dumbass wrote this pointless shit?"




I never realized how much I rely on my laptop until I arrived home after a shitty week at the office. By shitty, I literally mean there was shit I had to deal with throughout the week. Busted toilets and pipes and….. Anyway it was fucking nasty. Beyond that ordeal work has been rather busy with conversions and shift changes. But I will not bore you with details regarding my actual mundane existence. I want to share the pain I went through to prove something I discovered when this happened. I am a rationally irrational human with emotions! I have been called cold hearted son of a bitch, and I proudly said "thank you". I've been told I have the emotional capacity of a lunch box, to which I replied "Never heard you complain about the meat in that lunch box!" (Yes, that relationship lasted about nine seconds after that statement.) I've been told that I had to be one of the most callous people one individual had ever met. After a few years of hearing this I began to believe some of those statement and learned to accept myself for who I was, a cold uncaring lunchbox. The only bright point I could take away with regards to this is that my lunchbox at least had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on it, no I'm not talking about my underwear. But upon pushing the power button on my Dell laptop and hearing the death rattle of my hard drive my heart sank. The black screen had a simple message on it, "C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32.EXE ERROR….FUCK YOU, I HOPE YOU GET ASS HERPIES" Actually the "fuck you" I added but that's what I read when this error appeared on the screen. My stomach did that flip flop thing where you think you are going to shit and puke at the same time but not sure which will come first, then I took a deep breath. It hit me, I had lost over five years of my personal thoughts, stolen music, movies, TV shows both legally downloaded and otherwise, and my stash of nine billion gigs of porn. I sat in my dining room chair as a crushed man. The weight I felt at that point must have been akin to Shawn Fanning after being told that his Napster software was illegal and he was fucked by the government with no lube. Go republicans! I sat in the chair, fingers hovering over my keyboard frantically thinking back to my days of working with PC's for a living with Gateway before they went belly up like a goldfish without food for a week. I pressed the enter, more out of a lack of other options and disbelief than anything else and the response was "FUCK YOU ASSHOLE, WHAT PART OF I HOPE YOU GET ASS HERPIES DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?" I tried the restore disk option from the software that came with the pc, but it refused to work. I attempted to "Re-install" windows file "system32.exe" that came back with the message "OK YOU PRICK, I SWEAR TO ASTROPHYSICS THAT I WILL KICK YOU IN THE LEFT TESTICAL IF YOU TRY THAT AGAIN." I was left with the only option I could fathom…format and reload the hard drive in the hope that I could at least salvage the laptop and attempt to use it until I could purchase a new system. At that precise moment I realized something, I felt something, I embraced something. I had an emotion! Grant it this emotion was to punch the laptop throw it in the yard, get my sledge hammer and smash it into a million pieces then light the fucker on fire and watch it burn, maybe roast a marshmallow over it. But it was an emotion none the less! I realized that what my ex girlfriends, mother and priest had said to me were all lies! I felt emotions! I felt rage, loss and a desire for a marshmallow! It was a bitter sweet moment as I came back to the reality that the four blogs I was currently working on were completely lost and my timeline I had built is now lost and nearly a months worth of work had been destroyed by a simple file being broken. Sadness was experienced next, then the thought of a new laptop brought on the emotion of greed, I wanted a new laptop and I wanted it right then. Mostly so I could actually set fire to my current broken laptop and enjoy a tasty marshmallow, but still it was another emotion felt by me, a cold unfeeling bastard.



So to those of you who think your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, fuckbuddy or friend is incapable of feeling emotion. Break their laptop and see what happens. You might get the message of "FUCK YOU, I HOPE YOU GET ASS HERPIES YOU SON OF A BITCH."