It Takes All Kinds
It's fun to occasionally see where visitors to this site come from and what they came here looking for. Thanks to the little hit counter on the right side, I can track quite a bit of information about people who drop by and gauge what their interests are. A lot of people apparently link from the dialog box of Clever Littler Minx, so I must offer up a regal bow to the Minx. May you blog indefinitely. Most hits, however, seem to occur because people have done searches on Google.com. And what they're looking for can often be disturbing. I guess I wasn't too surprised to see that someone came to my site after seaching on "comparison+boxers+vs+briefs." After all, that's a topic that has kept me up nights. Another person dropped by after searching on "perforated+scrotum." I don't know if my site helped him at all, but I wish him a speedy recovery. Keeping with the groin theme, someone clicked on my site after searching for "testicle+biting+cartoons." This must be a little known genre of cartoons that has not yet found its way into the mainstream newspaper comics, but I look forward to the day it does. Garfield taking a chomp off Odie would keep me laughing for a week. I'm not sure why someone was doing a search on "cunnilingus+cyber+logs," but they should really get together with the person searching for "cunnilingus+tonsilitis." May they find each other and live happily ever after.
Top Ten Reasons Luke Helder Bombed Mailboxes
10. Tired of being pre-approved by Visa and Mastercard
9. Thought bombings would distract parents from crappy report card
8. Believed that, if he blew up enough mailboxes, he could go into business as a mailbox repairman
7. Was really cheesed off about another postal rate hike
6. Took a game of "truth or dare" just a little too far
5. Had some extra pipe bombs laying around that "needed some detonatin'"
4. Hoped to win top prize on "America's Most Explosive Home Videos"
3. Tee-shirt that said "Ask me about my crazy ideas about death and government" just wasn't getting enough attention
2. Believed postmans' creed, "neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow," needed to be tweaked to include a pipe bomb reference
1. At 21 years old, he thought he was primed for some good, old-fashioned, rough prison rape
Corporate Priorities
In the midst of an apparent layoff binge by IBM that will reportedly phase out 10 percent of their workforce over the next month, here I sit with a brand-spanking new computer on my desk. Just a thought: maybe, if IBM saved the money they invested in the new PCs they're plopping on employee desks, they could afford to keep a few more employees. I don't know, maybe that's just crazy thinking. My officemate (Jen, you know who you are) is telling me that it does me no good to sit and worry whether I'll be one of the employees who gets the axe. Here's the deal: I hate job searching, because I hate all the jobs that are out there. Ideally, I want to sit and write my column for hundreds of newspapers nationwide and get paid tons of money to do it. In actuality, my column appears in two weeklies, and the pay is mostly token change that just makes me feel good when the check arrives. In other words, the threat of a layoff just reminds me how tenuous my position in the world really is, and how mediocre I really am. While the Sam Palmisanos of the world lick the boots of stockholders and get paid millions to do it, well-intentioned, hard-working, decent people (like me *ahem*) get tossed out like so much garbage. Granted, I'm yelling at the gathering clouds before the rain even starts, there's no guarantee that my position will be cut, but it still just bothers me. Anyway, enough of this. I'll write something more entertaining later.
The Two Towers
Okay, I'm fully aware that the tragic events of 9/11 were truly horrendous, but today I read something that made me realize some people are just a little too sensitive about the whole deal. For those who have been living in a self-contained bubble, on Mars, with their fingers in their ears for the past couple of months, there's a movie called Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Rings, that was based on the J.R.R. Tolkien classic novel trilogy. The next installment of the movie, based on the book, is called The Two Towers. Now, this is not some marketing ploy meant to capitalize on the tragedy of 9/11. The Two Towers was the name of the book, published in the early 1950s. And yet, according to this news report, "a group calling itself Those Affected by September 11 is petitioning director Peter Jackson and studio New Line Cinema to change the name 'to something less offensive.' 'The title is clearly meant to refer to the attacks on The World Trade Center,' notes the petition posted at petitiononline.com and signed by more than 1,200 people. 'It is unforgivable that this should be allowed to happen.'" If I may, just for a second, editorialize on the uninformed state of 1,200 people: Kindly remove your heads from your collective ass, people! This is a movie, based on a book, that has nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, unless there were hobbitts and orcs and wizards and trolls working in the buildings, which I highly doubt. There's nothing more dangerous than an idiotic person with a cause (see also the mailbox pipe bomber), unless you count 1,200 idiotic people with a cause. If it were up to them, every movie ever made that had footage of the WTC would be trashed and burned because they're obviously making money on the tragedy. Yeesh! I especially love the name of the group, Those Affected by September 11, as if they're some sort of elite group of moral purists that feel the anguish of 9/11 more fully than the rest of the American public. Why do I read stuff like that and feel dumber? Blech.
Space Invaders
I went to dinner last night at the Outback Steakhouse with a friend of mine, Lisa, and her friend, Christy. Now, I had met Christy before, but she was seated well away from me at the time. Last night, she sat right next to me, and I was quick to discover she has no concept of personal space whatsoever. I have a personal space of about 12 inches, anything closer and I start to feel a tad constricted. Christy has no such qualms about personal space. She sat down, squashed her butt up next to mine, ran her hand up my thigh to make a point when she was talking, and she had a fixation with touching my chest. I felt like I was being groomed by a chimpanzee. Usually when a completely unknown female starts pawing at me, I've just placed a dollar in her underwear. Now, Christy is a very good looking female creature, so I was torn by feeling uncomfortable at times, to envisioning myself in a softcore porn movie starring just Christy and myself. I've encountered such space invaders many times during my life, and I simply can't understand why they insist on being so touchy-feely, as if they are pickpockets that just get really lost in their work. You see, when I'm trying to eat pasta, I find it's easier to do without having my chest patted in mid-conversation. It was like eating with Helen Keller.
So, after five straight days of flat line Internet access, my cable modem sparked to life this morning at about 5 a.m. for not particular reason. I'm still going to have Charter give my cable access a thorough look over tomorrow, but this is the type of crap that just irritates me.
Well, it turns out the maniacal pipe bomb mailer who has been terrorizing the Midwest was raised in a town called Pine Island, about 10 miles north of where I live. Now, I don't know if anyone who reads this blog (three or four of you) has ever heard television news report broadcasts from markets consisting of less than 100,000 people, but they have a tendency to overstate a local news angle like this. You'd think they caught Osama bin Laden himself. KTTC, the Rochester, Minn., NBC affiliate had some of the most laughable stories you can imagine, including a 30 second interview with the Pine Island mail carrier. Here's the deal: the kid was raised in Pine Island, which really doesn't mean anything. Sure, you can do the whole concerned parents angle, but that's about where I would draw the line. No pipe bombs were found in Minnesota, so an interview with the Pine Island mail carrier is lazy journalism at best. Second, the kid was attending school at the University of Wisconsin/Stout, so the university has a much better local angle than anything coming out of Pine Island. Reporters can interview his college friends and get a better gauge of his mental state than talking to his 5th grade Pine Island teacher who says something like "He always seemed a little too into his crayons. I was worried about the boy."
Additionally, the local news played up the fact that the bomber was a singer in a local band called Apathy. Tell me, does this have anything to do with anything? According to KTTC it does: they went out and interviewed a clerk at a local music store that sold Apathy CDs. Does that make any friggin sense?! Here are the questions that should be pursued in my mind. Did the kid have any close current friends who knew something was up? Was there any connection between the states or sites he planted his bombs. Was he purely mentally unstable or did he have an agenda that would indicate accomplices. I don't know, these just seem like far better angles than talking to a music clerk.
But, then again, I'm just a lowly magazine news editor. What do I know?
Have Internet, Will Travel
Okay, I have my little home Internet thing taken care of. They're coming to look at it on Thursday. When? Anywhere from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Oh, I just totally hate that!! What kind of a window is that?
"Ryan, we'd like to have you at work at 9 a.m."
"Well, okay, but keep in mind that I have a four hour window there. I could come in at 9 a.m., but I may not make it until 1 p.m."
So, here I sit without home Internet access until Thursday. I've been addicted to the Internet for the last five years. I don't think I can make it. I look at my computer, sitting forlornly, detached from the outside world, and I can't even manage the enthusiasm to move the mouse. The Internet opens your computer to so much information, it just totally spoils you. Without it, your computer just become a glorified calculator. Waaaaaaaahhhhh!
Maintaining the Urge to Run
I like exercising. During the course of a given week, I'll usually do four hours of hapkido and I'll run between four and eight miles. Due to this year's mild winter, I was able to run throughout the year, and I'm pretty proud of that. Still, I find that keeping the enthusiasm to run every other day is not easy. There's just so many things I'd rather do, like absolutely nothing. Prior to a run, I'll lounge on my bed or couch, and I'll consider taking a nap over running. It usually takes me an hour to find the hidden well of ambition to hit the road. The thing is, the feeling of completing a run or three miles or more is just awesome, and I always feel monumentally great about myself for hours afterward. So, why do I have such trouble doing something that makes me feel so good? Answers, people. I need answers.
Dan Akroyd is a Corporate Slug
You know, it's gotten to the point that, every time I see one of those Charter Communications commercials starring Dan Akroyd, I want to put my foot through the TV. Here in the bustling, yet boring, community of Rochester, Minn., Charter has a monopoly on high-speed cable Internet access, and they wield this power with all the consumer indifference you'd expect from a company that has no competition to speak of within a 80 mile radius. I must call them, again, because my 24/7 cable access has been at an unacceptable 00/0 level for the past three days. It would be different if this was the first time, but this will be my third call in seven months. Also, my latest cable bill said that I didn't owe anything for the last month, and I simply know that's wrong. So, here's what's going to happen, according to routine of the past: I'll call and be put on hold while a recorded response will inform me that my call is important to Charter (Really? Then pick up the friggin phone!!). Finally, a rep will answer and he or she will hand me off to several other reps until I land in the hands of the guy or girl who just started their new job 15 seconds ago. They'll inform me, after about half-an-hour, that I'm apparently not getting a signal (And here I thought I was calling just to be neighborly). They offer to send someone to check out the situation, and that he'll be able to drop by the house on Wednesday between 6 a.m. and midnight, so I'll have to take time off of work to greet this guy, which means I get to lay around on the couch and watch horrible daytime television. Finally, a guy wearing far too many tools on his belt will arrive and ask me where my cable runs (probably to the TV, you friggin moron!). I show him to the point of cable entry in the basement and he starts whatever it is he does. An hour later, he tells me I'm not getting an Internet signal (so, that's why I don't have Internet access? Astounding!). He fixes whatever's wrong, and it works for about two months before going out, and we begin the process again. Lousy Dan Akroyd. He's to blame.
