"I don't know what is marijuana. Perhaps I will try it when it will no longer be criminal. I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand." -- Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien
An open letter to all online advertising Web designers:
I don't click on your pop-up ads. I don't. I won't. Knock it off. At what point, in what meeting, was it decided that the best way to connect with potential customers is to assault them with irritating pop-up ads while they surf the Web for things they ARE interested in? It makes no fucking sense.
When I'm on Excite.com, and I try to surf elsewhere, I don't need an ad popping up telling me all about a Speed Blaster Upgrade. I don't fucking care. It's just another fucking window I have to close. Do you honestly think inconveniencing me constitutes a sound marketing strategy? It's like shopping at a grocery store and having a stock boy race by and slap a "10% Off on Baby Wipes" coupon on my forehead. First off, that would really piss me off. Second, I don't fucking need Baby Wipes.
And stop with the swirling little animation ads that appear in the smack dab middle of the page I'm trying to view. That's not working either. I want to read the text behind that annoying fucking thing, but no, I have to sit back and wait for the full animation segment to wrap up so I can close the ad and read the page unhindered. I can assure you, that does little to impress me and makes me even more apt not to ever, fucking EVER, buy your fucking product.
I understand that it's your job to come up with innovative online marketing vehicles. But you simply have to fucking realize that your goal here is not to alienate your audience by irritating us to the point of lunacy. If I want your stupid ass product, I'll go looking for it. So, why don't you, oh, I don't know, put a nice non-intrusive ad in the corner somewhere, something that catches the eye without prompting a flood of fucking additional windows to open. After all, I'm surfing for news and information here. I did not log on so I could play a perpetual fucking game of digital whack-a-mole.
I would also like to point out that I think pop-up ads and, to some extent, cookies, in some ways represent, to me, some sort of tampering with my computer. I know you think you're just gathering valuable marketing data, but the fact is you're fiddling with the settings and preferences of my computer. MY computer, not yours. I'd appreciate if you just kept your grubby fucking hands off my computer. If, for example, you came into my house to see what sort of cereal I eat and what brand of light bulb I favor, I'd have pretty much free range to send you out the door with my shoe buried heel deep in your ass, and I have to wonder, really, what the difference is when it comes to MY computer.
I hope you take my comments under advisement, and that you will, in all due haste, go fuck yourself.
Thank you.
Yesterday morning, as I exited the warmth of the house and entered the nipping chill of this unusually cool start to October, I noticed something I had never before witnessed. First off, I should note that there was frost on the ground. I've seen frost before, so that was no big deal.
But, all down the street, I noticed that trees were shedding their leaves, and I mean they were just dropping their leaves like snow. These were healthy green leaves, without a trace of fall color to them. Yet they were just cascading from the trees, piling up in enormous blankets in the yards.
When I got back from work, people were dutifully raking up mounds and mounds of green leaves. I've never seen such a thing before. Practically every single leaf on those trees, and trees all over town, were virtually bare. It was like the fall season kicked things into super fast forward.
Does it have to do with an early frost? Does it have to do with our summer drought? Can anyone explain it?
Arms Dealing Nation Excited About New Nuclear Weapons Campaign
PYONGYANG (Rhodes Media Services) -- Determined to further establish itself as a world leader in arms dealing, North Korea has been heavily focusing on its "We Have Nukes, Too" advertising campaign.
North Korea has been extremely successful in branding itself as a bad boy, rebel without a cause, and it has built a loyal customer base in such countries as Yemen, which has been an enthusiastic buyer of North Korean-made SCUD missiles.
"Our sales really took off after we were named to the Axis of Evil by President Bush," said North Korea's chief marketing manager, Kim Jong Park. "You simply can't BUY exposure like that. Now that we have nukes, we don't have to rely on lucky breaks like that any more. Now we can just yell 'Nukes! We got nukes here! Get your nukes right here! Made fresh daily from one of the two remaining members of the Axis of Evil! Satisfaction guaranteed!' And we don't have to pay much for advertising, either because, if we just blurt out 'Nukes!' pretty much every news organization in the world runs with it. I'm telling you, it's a pretty sweet deal, and it makes my job really easy."
Park said it was also a stroke of marketing genius to name their missile delivery systems Nodong and Taepo Dong, because they appealed to customers with a sly sense of humor.
"Yemen can't wait to get their hands on a Taepo Dong. Any Taepo Dong," said Park. "I mean, think about it. How many nations would like to attack another country using some Taepo Dongs? That's classic comedy with a little mayhem thrown into the mix for good measure."
It's not looking good this week, folks. There are indications in this screed that this may be the nutball's last installment. But, don't take my word for it, read for yourself.
MACHEYE OFFICIALLY OVER. Cold eagle left LX7. Now we can say the end to the Holocaust, the end to WWII, the end to all wars. No more gains. Those that want to drag it out & hide behind the proof now can be called a traitor to the U.S. That's called aiding and abetting.
PS The final chapter can be & will be called Mach 5000-LX7 digitizing. That's all. Thanks America for the great help.
Wait a minute. Somebody is helping this guy to do whatever it is this guy does? Stop that right now, unknown helper!
Although his blog has been silent for some time, I went out in search of Salam Pax today just to see where he's been. Well, he's been a lot of places. If there's one success story to come out of the whole Iraq war, it's Salam Pax. Anyway, I found a question and answer segment over at the Guardian. In it, Salam had some interesting things to say about the war and occupation. You can read the whole thing, but some of the items I found the most interesting are here.
When asked if he wanted occupation forces out of Iraq: no not yet please, if this is going to work it will have to be done with the help of whoever is willing to help us and it is going to take a lot of time. so if you don't mind, please wait around a little longer. and maybe invite some friends [UN] it makes the party better.
On marketing the war: oh the motives question. whatever they told us the motives and reasons were, don't trust them. I personally think there is a commitee living under ground controlled by grey aliens who make these decisions :) no seriously, didn't rumsfeld go on TV and say that going with the WMD argument was a political decision, you see it is all about marketing. how are they going to sell the war to their domestic markets. nice big posters of mushroom clouds always work. everything that has happened now in the UK and the US is just making me trust politicians even less. but it is nice that we got rid of Saddam.
On Iraq then and now: one of the problems is that we are very stuck in the now. because people's daily lives have become so difficult the last couple of months they tend to forget that an absolutly amazing thing has happened and that a whole new era has started, we are just going thru the painful process of the birth of the new Iraq. this is what I think. you need to remind most people of that alll the time the Governing Council we have should keep the hope up and keep the focus on the future alawys.
On media reports throughout Iraq: the truth is that the situation in the north and south of Iraq is not like central Iraq. the south is not great but it is mellower and the north is like a different country all together. of course there is much more to be done and it is not being done fast enough but once someone sits and gives you the numbers you just realize how big the effort needed is and just how long it is going to take, I had a chance to meet with the UNDP poeple who were working on the electricity issue and their estimate is 5 years to meet demand because it was short in the first place. the CPA and the Governing Council should try harder than they are now but I don't really think they are doing absolutely nothing. they are just slow and up to their eyeballs in bureaucracy
On Arab media: not Jazeera or Arabiya they feel as if they come with an agenda, I don't really trust them that much and I have seen people's reaction to their presence on the street. their reporters were about to be beaten up a couple of times. I don't want this do sound as a plug for them but they are really very balanced, go check Iraq Today
On obtuse media, and rebuilding responsibilities: that is because it is "Media", they only look at what they like. lots of businesses are open and private banks are back up, there are people who have set up huge generators and are selling electricty in neighborhoods. these things are all done by Iraqis with no help from the coalition forces, we don't need them to do these things we need them to help bring up the bigger structures.
I'm a black belt, and that doesn't mean shit.
Despite nearly seven years of martial arts training, I'm still relatively certain that, under the right circumstances, I could endure an ass stomping the likes of which you'd never know.
If someone is truly enraged, with adrenaline and whatever cocktail of drugs swimming in their system, there's a very good chance that all the martial arts training in the world won't be able to prevent the inevitable ass thumping.
These thoughts came to me last night as I drove home from my hapkido class. There are some really BIG guys in the beginner's class that I teach. I mean, professional football offensive linemen big. When they throw a punch at me, I feel a genuine obligation to get the hell out of the way. I find myself wondering, if I ever bump into a human behemoth in a bar who wants to crush me, whether I'd be able to defend myself.
The answer is yes. And no. The conventional wisdom is that, if I end up in a fight situation, I should let my opponent make the first move, thus absolving me of some sort of legal argument that I "started the fight." What I've come to believe is that is complete and total bullshit.
If I let someone attack me first, there's a real chance that attack will be successful. And, then I'm screwed. Even a slight grazing of the head with a fist is all that's required to unbalance and disorient me enough to make me vulnerable for an onslaught of follow-up blows.
Therefore, I've come to the conclusion that, if someone takes an aggressive posture with me, I won't be waiting for their first attack. I'll be crashing into them with knees and elbows flying, and I won't stop until they're motionless on the ground. And then I'm going to run away as fast as my fucking legs can carry me.
Back when I was a red belt, during my buddy's bachelor party, I ended up in a situation that should have ended differently, in retrospect. I asked a drunken kid to turn down the stereo at 4 a.m. and he refused. So, I turned it down for him. He then turned it up even louder. I then turned it off. He then tried to break a beer bottle on the kitchen counter and come at me with it, except the bottle didn't break, so he held the fully intact beer bottle in his hand and threatened to whack me with it.
That's when I tried to "negotiate" with him. I tried to explain to him that jail is bad, and he loudly asserted that he wasn't afraid of jail. My negotiations weren't going well. In a move I still can't quite fully understand, I shot my hand out in a lightning quick motion and . . . I snatched the bottle from his hand. The bottle made a super cool transition from his hand to mine. I was now the armed opponent, but only for a moment, because I threw the bottle behind me.
Even though the situation was defused with no loss of blood or consciousness by either party, the altercation still bothers me. What the fuck was I doing trying to "negotiate" with a bottle-wielding drunk? The moment he came at me with a bottle was the moment I should have laid into him with every foot and fist technique I know. By hesitating, I was putting myself at more risk. It haunts me to think I could be so cautious when instant action was required.
Since that incident, I've made a point of working out each week with the heavy bags at my martial arts studio, practicing, over and over, cutting the distance between myself and the bag and bashing it repeatedly with my knees, elbows and fists. I found myself wondering last night if all that practice will be enough "the next time."
Hopefully, "next time" won't happen, but if it does, I hope I kick the fucker's ass.
I've never been in debt. Okay, that's not entirely true. Yes, I've been in the kind of debt where I had to make car payments, and I'm currently in the kind of debt that says I have to make house payments.
I've never been in credit card debt, however. Truth be told, I've never even owned a credit card. I don't trust them. I've been conditioned not to trust them thanks to many years of living with college roommates.
Most of my college roommates had this weird outlook on credit cards. Basically, they thought credit cards were magical pieces of plastic that just magically paid for things and that they were somehow immune from the the ensuing debt that came about due to excessive credit card spending.
I'll admit it: I was sort of jealous of my roommates and their magical credit cards. After all, they always seemed to have money and, if they didn't, they just whipped out their credit cards. Books? Put them on the credit card. Food? Put it on the credit card. Night out at a strip club? credit card.
And yet there I was writing checks and budgeting like a fool. I remember thinking that I was doing everything all wrong. I mean, there I would sit, meticulously lording over my finances, while my roommates went waltzing all over town swiping their credit cards with the careless glee of a six-year-old with a loaded pistol.
Then, one year, I was a roommate with a guy named Chad. Chad was actually a former high school classmate of mine. He was, and is, a tech-head. He's one of those guys who was born to know technology. Way back in elementary school, he taught me how to write simple programs for the Apple IIc, and he always just seemed to know everything about computers.
But he didn't know shit about personal finances. He whipped out any one of his many credit cards with the swiftness and ease of a Old West gunslinger. By the time we became roommates, he had already accrued over $10,000 in credit card debt.
I remember thinking what an incredibly large amount of money that seemed to be, especially when I factored in the understanding that he also received financial aid, and that he also worked. Granted, he worked at the local Brach's candy factory on the Gummi Bear line, which paid about as well as you might imagine, but it was still money, so I came to the conclusion that old Chad was a pretty carefree spender.
Well, one day, I popped into Chad's outrageously messy room where I noticed, tucked between two huge bags of pilfered defective Gummi Bears, a credit card notice that was slugged "Urgent!" and another that was slugged "Immediate Payment Required" and still another that read "We Break Fingers And Toes."
Then the calls started coming in, usually two or three a day. "Is Mr. Haugen available? We really need to speak with him." No, he's not here. "Are you sure you're not really Mr. Haugen?" Yes, I'm sure. "Well, when he comes in, have him call Mike at Discover immediately." *sound of shotgun cocking* Will do.
Chad was masterful when it came to avoiding creditors. He always seemed to leave the apartment just two or three minutes before a creditor called. It was like he had some sort of sixth sense. Which was all fine and dandy, except that I ended up being the intermediary between Chad and the creditors, so I got to absorb all the impatient anger and suspicion of basically every credit card company on the planet.
It was the day a creditor appeared, in person, at our doorstep that I realized Chad's debt situation was probably more dire than Chad cared to admit. There was a knock at the door, I answered, and a gentleman in a suit that looked both impressive and threatening stood before me. He asked to see a Mr. Chad Haugen, at which point I heard a little scuffling emanating from Chad's room as Chad scurried out the back entrance which, conveniently, was located at the far end of his bedroom.
We chatted together, the ominous creditor and me, for about an hour, waiting for Chad to get home, even though, of course, there was no way in holy hell Chad was going to make an appearance while that guy was in our apartment. I even had to produce my ID, so the creditor was satisfied that I wasn't, in fact, Chad Haugen.
After that, I believe, Chad ended up getting a loan from his parents, or somebody, so he could pay off his credit card debt at least enough to keep the creditors at bay. He eventually got a job working at IBM, which was a long-assed commute from Winona to Rochester, but paid a whole lot more than the Gummi Bear line.
As for me, Chad's experience with credit cards pretty much scared me away from plastic for good.
Although it's my default mode to be in a pissy mood, I've been in a particularly pissy mood ever since I read that Layne will be censoring herself in the name of domestic tranquility. The thing is, I haven't been able to figure out WHY I'm extra pissy about it, and if there's one thing about being in a pissy mood, I like it to have FOCUS.
At first, I thought it was because Layne will apparently go from being Anne Frank (without the Nazis) to being Dear Abby, transitioning from her compelling self-analysis textbook transition from rape victim to lesbian, to something akin to a gossip columnist. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that wasn't what was bothering me.
This morning, it hit me. I was pissy because Layne was silencing herself because other people told her to. That bothers the living piss out of me. Ultimately, it comes down to ideological differences between how Layne and I view ourselves as writers. In short, Layne doesn't view herself as a writer. I do. And, as a writer, it drives me absolutely batty if someone tells me not to write something. No one tells me what I can and can not write but me.
My parents stopped reading my blog over a year ago because my mother didn't like reading about my life in such expletive-ridden detail. Fine, I told her, then don't read it. So, she doesn't. Neither does my dad. I mention my girlfriend, Melissa, all the time, and she reads me frequently. My only rule about posting about her is that I don't mention her last name. That's MY rule, not hers. She gets mad sometimes when she reads about herself and she doesn't agree with my interpretation of events. Then I tell her, fine, don't read it.
Some girlfriends don't like to hear or read about a guy's past girlfriends or sexual exploits. Strangely, Melissa can't get enough of the stories of my romantic and sexual past, so that's really never been an issue. But, even if it were an issue, I'd still write about them if and when I wanted to.
It comes down to this: if you're afraid to write something out of fear of someone getting mad or disagreeing, eventually the only thing you'll end up writing about is the antics of the family pet.
And if you don't have a family pet, then you're really fucked.
Um, okay, I'm just curious here, but:
"He wasn't involved," he said of Rove. "The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true." -- White House press secretary Scott McClellan.
So, if the president knows he wasn't involved, doesn't it stand to reason to think that he must then know who was involved? I mean, look at the language here. How can the President know someone isn't involved in something unless he knows who is invovolved in something? Taken even further, if Bush knows something about the leak which, I take from the quote, he does, then he's guilty of at least standing knowingly idly by while a federal law was broken.
Something's rotten here.
UPDATE: Then again, maybe not.
There are moments in life where you just KNOW you're about to be taken for a financial ride. For me, one of those moments came Saturday when I went to the last weekend of Minnesota's Renaissance Festival and, despite an entry fee of $16.95, I paid it anyway.
TICKET LADY: Here's your ticket, sir. Now, if you will just bend over ever so deeply and clutch your own ankles, you may proceed to the entrance.
ME: Thank you.
Did you know that "Renaissance," loosely translated, means "gullible broken idiot?" Really, it's true.
I only attended one other Renaissance Festival, and I was just a child at the time. But, I remember thinking, even then, that it seemed to be a lot to do about nothing. Granted, some of the shows are entertaining, and I can never resist the allure of walking around with a massive grilled turkey leg grasped in my hand like Twisted Sister, but aside from that, the Renaissance Festival is more or less the State Fair all over again, except with people in costumes.
And what's with the costumes? As a child, I thought the folks in costume were hired to give the festival an authentic feel. Not so. All those maidens and gents milling around wearing tights and chain mail and dresses are wearing those ensembles BECAUSE THEY WANT TO. It's like a Dungeons & Dragons convention gone horribly awry. I don't mean to belittle the folks who actually have Renaissance wear in their closets, which they drag out each year at the same time so they can "go native" at the Festival. But, still. I mean, COME ON, it's 50 frippin degrees out! You can't be comfortable in knee-length pantaloons, shirts cut off at the shoulder, and a chilly chain mail head protector. You just can't be. And, really. . . CHAIN MAIL? Are you expecting a drive by swording or something? *grumble, grumble*
I eventually became miffed at Melissa, who had a declared goal of walking around the festival grounds, sipping from a goblet of wine. Okay. Fine. But, first, we had to find a goblet. No problem. We were at the Renaissance Festival, after all. Goblets were plentiful. After a disturbing amount of goblet searching, with Melissa looking for "just the right goblet" (I never knew such a thing existed, by the way), she finally found a ceramic goblet she liked. And it only cost $16 (for a fucking goblet that probably cost 50 cents to make). Then, THEN, Melissa decided she wanted matching goblets, because thought it would be cute if we walked around drinking wine from matching goblets.
*brain stops functioning. Ryan's anger level at critical*
My once-pliant wallet built an immediate barrier at the thought of buying matching overpriced goblets in the name of "being cute." My internal accountant just couldn't justify the purchase. He sat there, cigarette in mouth, clear visor on his head, madly tapping on his tabulating machine, and he came to the inescapable conclusion that "that's just a really fucking stupid purchase, sir."
I informed Melissa that I was not going to buy a single goblet, yet alone two, just so I could walk around shlepping wine on a cold, drizzly day to better fit in with people who have little or no lives.
A battle of wills commenced. Informed that I would not acquiesce to a goblet purchase in any way, shape or form, Melissa, who is perpetually cash strapped due to her student status, went ahead and bought BOTH goblets any way, primarily, I believe, to piss me off.
The hitch, of course, was that, after buying two stupid fucking goblets, she didn't have any money left for. . . get ready. . . WINE.
I had her. She cozied up to me, and asked me for wine money so she could fill her stupid goblets, and I wouldn't hear of it. No way, sister. No chance. Not going to happen. Not on my watch. You got your goblets, and now you have to suffer the consequences.
So, she did what any girlfriend determined to get her way would do: she asked her friend for some money. Her friend ponied up the dough, and Melissa went off and filled her goblet with wine, making a point not to fill BOTH goblets. Fine. I didn't want to drink wine from a stupid fucking goblet any way! Argh!
Relationship fever. Catch it!!
Sunday afternoon, I brought my old computer to my friend, Gozz, who installed Windows 2000 Server so I can start to undertake my long awaited project of moving my blog to an at-home location, complete with fun and flashy graphics and PICTURES. Real, honest-to-goodness pictures. It's both an attempt to make my blog more interesting, while at the same time adding to my Web-based skill set. We shall see how this project evolves.
