Update...

I wrote yesterday about my nephew's being indignant about his truck tires being moved to the outside. Last night it was mentioned during a group event (no, not by me, but by my father, who had heard all about the atrocity from the Supreme Commander) that perhaps the Supreme Commander had over-reacted.

Supreme Commander: "No I didn't."

Grandfather: "What's the big deal?"

Supreme Commander: "Because they'll get all wet and dirty just sitting out there like that."

Having never had the opportunity to amaze him with my mad logic skills when the much pissing and moaning was going on earlier, I saw this as my chance to spring into action.

Me: "You mean, the same way they would be if they were on your truck?"

Supreme Commander: "No. If they're on my truck, I can dry them off."

Me: "Well you can dry them off back there too if that's so important to you."

Supreme Commander: "I'm not going to go to the trouble of going into the back yard every time it rains to dry those off!"

Me: "Oh, I see. But you will go to the trouble of carrying around something to dry them off -and take the time to do so- every time you drive somewhere if they were on your truck, is that it?"

Supreme Commander: "I wouldn't have to. The centrifuglal forces [yes, that's how he pronounced 'centrifugal force'] would spin the water and dirt off them as I drove."

Me, blinking in amazement: "Oooo-kaaay." I decided not to try to explore how his mind deduced that centrifugal forces would continue to spin the water and dirt off the rims when the truck wasn't moving.

Supreme Commander: "Besides, three of those four tires are in perfect shape and they'll rot out there in the yard."

Me: "My friend, you leave for the Navy in four months. There is no way those tires will be sitting in my back yard long enough to rot. If you don't have them gone by the time you leave, I'll have them gone within two weeks after your leaving."

Supreme Commander: "But they'll rot before them if they sit out there like that."

Me: "Ok, pollution and solar radiation may be bad, but they're not that bad. I've had my RV parked for months at a time and the tires don't rot."

Supreme Commander: "That's because they're on the RV."

Me: "Ooooo-kaaay."

At which point I found myself searching the table for another fork to jab into my forehead.

As the Wheel Turns... to Rust

Sometimes people, in their desire to simply have something to bitch about, will voice a complaint that, when considered more closely, just doesn't make sense. It's at these times that I have to laugh over the stupidity. Like, for example, when Republicans bitch nowadays about Democrats not taking Social Security or Medicare reform seriously. Excuse me, who has had a clear majority in both houses for the last twelve years, extending even to the White House for the last six of those years? If you thought those issues were so important, Joe Republican, why didn't you address them when you could have acted with near impunity in designing the changes the way you desired? Instead, you wait until your party implodes, then piss and moan because Dems aren't attacking the issue with the kind of gravity you suddenly deem it deserves?

Before my pointless rage escapes, let me change subjects....

When we moved to Texas, we stayed with my parents for a short time while searching for a house of our own. My father rented a storage unit about the size of Rhode Island to store not only our crap -er, valuable belongings, but those of my brother as well, who had relocated to the same area about the same time.

Now that we have our own place, the shed has become little more than a financial extravagance, so he decided to close it down at the end of March. I spent yesterday cleaning out our garage in preparation for the arrival of that last load of cra- valuable belongings, from the shed. Our nephew, who is 18 and clearly the un-coronated commander of the universe, has been storing four tires and rims for his truck in our garage for a few months now. Actually, he's been storing just about everything he removes from his truck in the garage, which I'm sure will find their way into the trash eventually; probably after he leaves for the Navy in a couple months and decides he doesn't need any of it any longer.

To make room for the craaa... valuable stuff from the shed, I moved those tires and rims to the back yard. Yes, I'm fully aware that this is a major leap toward redneck status, but as I see it they'll only be there a few months so I didn't even bother to place them in a "good spot" in the yard. They simply stacked right next to the fence door, so as to require the minimum amount of effort to remove when we sell them after our nephew's in the Navy.

Today our nephew noticed that the tires had been moved.

"What the hell? Why are they back there?!"

"Because we needed the space for all the shed stuff."

"You could have at least asked me to move them. Those are $400 per tire!"

"Why is their being back there such an issue?"

"Because they'll get wet and dirty sitting out there in the rain and weather, that's why!"

This last part he said as he was storming out the door to leave. If I had to venture a guess, his real issue was that he had shown up with his buddy to go ride dirt bikes and didn't expect everyone to be home. His buddy doesn't have a dirt bike and our nephew only has his own. But also in that garage is a competition quality Kawasaki dirt bike that belongs to my brother. That he's been told by his father that he's never allowed to use that bike doesn't matter to the Supreme Commander. And we're convinced that if we hadn't been home, my brother's bike would have left in the bed of the Commander's truck and he was more than just a little peeved that now his buddy and he would have to share the one bike. His attitude seems to suggest sometimes that as far as he's concerned, as long as he can return it before anyone knows he took it, it shouldn't be a problem that he took something that doesn't belong to him.

Since we were home, that wasn't possible and the Supreme Commander was merely searching for something to be peeved about because as I watched him drive away down the street, his comment about his tires being ruined still floating in the air, I thought "um... 'scuse me, but isn't the proper place for those things the outside of the vehicle? Where they will come in contact with rain and mud?"

Pardon me while I go jab myself in the forehead with a fork.

Jesus Loves Me, Yes I Know

So that song I referenced in yesterday's blog, which I didn't publish until this morning... you know the one: where God goes and f-s everyone up? Yeah, anyway, I wrote a letter to Jesus about it because I just had to know if there's a way He could bring back the old ways. And wouldn't you know it, he responded! You'll know it's me writing because I'm using my pseudonym, Wankin Hiscox.

Random Task

Yeah, ok, so the title sucks. I know it; you know it. I just wanted to get this blog posted and have about 15 nanoseconds before I have to bounce for my martial arts class, so I came up with the first thing that sounded moderately relevant. I was looking for a play on bush, dick and rove, but nothing came to mind. If anything pops into my head later, I may change it, but this is effortlessly average enough for now.

So I’m up to my old ways: lots to say but don’t write it down. Go figure. This time around as a so-called blogger though, I’ve decided to adopt a different strategy. I’ll save my daily rants for those most closely orbiting the daily life of planet “Me” (mostly because that allows me expression without having to sit down to write), then post here when I’ve stored up enough relevant shit to make it worthwhile to sit through it. Think of it like this: you’ve recently eaten a large pizza, with extra cheese; and now you’re all bound up and despite feeling the need to evacuate, you just can’t seem to muster the muscle strength to get things moving. Only through prolonged buildup does need overwhelm desire and the blockage comes forth all at once. Yeah, it’s like that; only without the need for air freshener.
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As I meandered my way through this last few weeks I came across this, which made me wonder as it played in my head for two days after: is God really Samuel S. Jackson?
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I also discovered a new blog, written by a woman who’s employed by the Army as a journalist. She’s got a love for wit, writing and tattoos, so I think I fit her target demographic perfectly. Plus, she’s a professional writer and we all know that the professional writer types have things to say; things that stir thoughts and emotions in the reader.

She’s about to be re-deployed to Iraq despite having already completed her one-year tour there, which really sounds f-ed up to me. Something the military doesn’t admit to in their smarmy little ads about honor and integrity and being able to whoop ass single-handedly, a la Schwarzenegger, is that once you do sign on the dotted line, they can keep your ass for as long as they want, provided they classify you as “essential personnel” to some conflict being fought at that moment. So all this shit about performing one, one-year tour in the combat zone and the remainder in a secure post is bull when you’re a journalist employed by the military to provide positive spin to Bush –n– Dick’s quest to make it through the last 1.5 years of this administration without having to admit they royally screwed up. And you know what really jabs my nuts about their actions regarding this war? That those two will retire from the White House truly believing all the propaganda they’ve vomited for the last four years.

Although really I shouldn’t be surprised. I can’t think of one self-proclaimed autocrat who doesn’t ignore reality in favor of his own propaganda. Despite the suffering his regime caused, Saddam truly believed he was the savior of the people of Iraq. Hitler truly believed he was Germany’s savior and akin to divinity. Louis XVI truly believed he was the benevolent father of France. Kim Jong Il; Stalin; Idi Amin; Pol Pot; and the list goes on and on, down to little Equatorial Guinea, whose “president” has turned himself into one of the richest men in the world while decimating the country of over a third of it’s population.

Bush is no different when it comes to ignoring the will of the people in favor of his own misguided principles, be they political or personal. Most of our presidents are the same. Approval ratings low? To him, that’s just the liberal media, so he ignores them (even his champion, Fox News, places his latest approval rating at 34% and falling). His speeches reek of the same kind of empty rhetoric every failing leader employs. He tries to influence public opinion, but rather than do it through rational, logical debate (as, say, Reagan would do), Bush uses deliberately misleading statements and logical inaccuracies which might appear to be emotionally persuasive, but aren’t necessarily valid either (e.g., “you’re either with us or against us”).

His political machine is no different than that of any self-absorbed plutocrat who’s promoted beyond his ability. He uses rampant patriotism (not the kind that makes you teary eyed when hearing the national anthem as those jets fly overhead, though; I’m talking about the kind of rabid flag waving that turns morality malleable), vagueness, unwavering secrecy of his actions, oversimplification of complex issues, rationalization, and the labeling of anyone who disagrees with him as “helping the enemy” as weapons against those who would question his leadership.

Aaannnd… now that I have the NSA’s attention…

--deep breath--

Anyway, this journalist is about to leave and she wanted her last weekend in the States to be kick ass, so she partied hard. This seems a little counter-intuitive to me. I mean, she writes of the loneliness and soul-searing heat in Iraq; of the incomprehensible idiocy of how the Army does things; of having to follow troops into combat zones as part of her job. To me, having a great weekend means what you’re missing is that much more fresh in your mind when you’re finally boots down in Iraq. Seems to me that if you wanted to take the edge off being assigned to such a place, you’d try to make your last weekend before deployment as bad as possible. Then, when you got to Iraq, you could say, “hey this is nothin’. Why last weekend I…”

The question is, what could you do in the U.S. that would make Iraq seem like a vacation? Well, you could watch that Wife Swap marathon on E!. Or was it Trading Spouses? Or you could spend the weekend studying Anna Nichole’s death and the number of men poking her around the time she became pregnant. Who knows, you might find that you were sleeping with her too and might be the real father of her baby. I mean, what is that now, like 15 men who claim to have been boning her around that time?

Or, you could spend the weekend with my extended family, where the drama that is our every day would make Iraq seem tranquil. Or if this is too over the top, you can tone it down by simply jabbing something sharp into your ear for a day. At any rate I hope she survives. Any woman who would get a tattoo on her neck just to test Army regs on the matter is someone I want to know better.

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On the lighter side, I’ve been on a quest lately to discover ways I can spice up my day to day. I think I could use more giggles considering I spend 9-5 crunching numbers for the man and I could use and outlet for my pointless rage. Here’s a short list:

• The next time I see someone who’s away from his/her desk but has left their email window active, send an email to everyone in the corporate directory in which he/she will proclaim to the entire company his/her intention to resign in order to devote more time to dancing the Macarena competitively.
• Refer to myself in the third person, only change my name from day to day and keep sending messages to the IT administrators requesting an email name change.
• The next time I visit the ATM, try to complete a withdrawal in Spanish and hope the machine doesn’t dispense pesos.
• Start using “true dat!” and "that's whack!" more.
• Sign all further correspondence using the name “Wankin Hiscox”
• Start writing “for sexual favors” in the memo line on all the checks I write for my bills, just to see if anyone ever notices.

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Oh, and how do I get one of these?