English People Can't Speak English

At my place of employ I encounter and talk on the phone to a lot of people from all over the world.  I would like to note that I do not say this with a sense of self importance.  I don't travel the globe giving sick children heart transplants or negotiate international trade agreements; I am a bartender.  This is not to say that I don't respect my profession, on the contrary, I relish my role as the Working Man's Psychiatrist and Shit Bird Etiquette Coach.  I make good dough, I don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn, I get to meet some really great people and being a high functioning alcoholic is generally viewed as a professional asset.  But let's be real; for the most part I pour booze into glasses, listen to peoples dumb-ass problems and make sure women don't go home with basement dwelling serial killers.  So, that's what I do.  I tend bar.  And it just so happens that I tend bar at a joint that is in every guide book and on every travel show from Kazakhstan to Calgary.

I have learned many things about many cultures and developed several stereotypes while "behind the stick."  For example; Brazilians will mix anything with Coca-Cola, Canadians are nothing but frozen hillbillies, Russians always want to drink tropical shit, 99 percent of American's are Coors Light swilling fucktards, Asian's of all stripes can neither order nor properly metabolize a cocktail, the French are the most self important people on the planet, people rarely listen to the answer after they ask you a question, everyone loves to introduce themselves on the phone for absolutely no reason, needing to be 21 years old and have an I.D in order to be in a bar is a REALLY confusing rule, and everyone except Americans, Greeks, and occasionally the Irish tip like total shit if at all.  "When in Rome" motherfuckers... 

Above all else I have learned one thing; English people suck at speaking English.  They add letters to words, they mispronounce, they add words where they don't belong and they just generally talk nonsense.  Without a doubt I speak with a very specific accent (especially after a few belts) and am prone to slang.  I am not an English professor or any sort of language expert, however, I do recognize utter linguistic bullshit when I hear it.  I would like to give you a few examples.  I apologize for some inevitable misspelling, but unfortunately there is not a spell check for nonsense.


Example 1; "Mostibly" as an abbreviation for "most probably"

i.e, "I'll mostibly head back to the hotel for a quick nap and then go to the 'Man Hole' for a good buggering." 

The thing that is most irritating about this abbreviation isn't that it's not a real word.  Many dialects, including my own, use goofy abbreviations or run two or more words together when speaking.  The problem is that these monarch blowing sonsabitches will never, never admit to having said it. 

ME: Can I get you something to drink?

BRIT: I'll mostibly just have pint.

ME: I beg your pardon?

BRIT: I'll mostibly just have a pint.

ME: I don't know what 'mostibly' means.

BRIT: I didn't say that.  I just said that I would have a pint.

ME: You said, "I'll 'mostibly' have a pint."

BRIT: No I didn't.  I said, "I will, MOST PROBABLY, have a pint."

ME: ......

I have had this exact conversation on innumerable occasions.  Go ahead, use your made up words.  Just don't fucking lie to me about it.  It reminds me of that David Cross "yeah bitch" bit.


Example 2; Ending sentences with "isn't it though?" or "innit though?"

i.e "This donkey cock pudding is lovely, innit though?"

I don't really know if this is grammatically incorrect so much as it is just annoying because they say it constantly and the sentiment can easily be achieved through vocal inflection alone.  It is verbally redundant and at the very least can be said using less syllables.  It's almost as irritating as the way Canadians feel the need to end every sentence with "eh?"  Shut the fuck up about how much you love your frozen maple leaf sucking country before I pull your jean jacket over your head and hockey punch all your teeth out.  Now take your shitty country and get back in the shadow of our larger, globally relevant, more climate diverse (and in many ways even shittier) country, eh?


Example 3; Adding the letter 'r' to words for no reason.

i.e "Princess Dianer was really fond of Americer.  She especially liked the way they utilize exotic spices like salt and pepper in their cuisine." or "President Obamar is a lovely man.  Did you know his father was from Kenyar?"

This just drives me bat shit.  It is no less idiotic then the Tyler Perry 'Medea' voice.  Ermagerd.

That's just a few examples I can think of off the top of my head.  Perhaps I will add more as I encounter them or when it's not 3am.  I suppose none of these things would be particularly annoying if their nationality didn't share a name with their language and they weren't accompanied by their superior colonialist attitude (the empire is dead, get the fuck over yourself), the dumbest possible tourist questions ("is it true Al Caponi was killed here?" "Do you have live music today?" as a band is blaring directly behind me), non existent or meager to the point of insult gratuity and those Halloween horror show grills in their mouths.  Finally, don't correct my American pronunciation (oregano, paprika, process, schedule, etc.).  I'm not saying that your way is wrong or my way is right.  It goes without saying that different regions pronounce words differently and some are more correct then others.  Nobody is really wrong.  But when you try to correct my generic American pronunciation I feel the need to point out that there are waaaaaay more of us then you and, therefore, my pronunciation would be considered the standard.  Also, it's rude and makes me want to punch you in the dick and/or vagina. 

Enough of this.  It's late and I'm gonna go read some Shakespeare in bed.  There is a motherfucker who knew the English language. 



    

A Recap and Review of Quite Possibly the Laziest day of My Life

The following account of my Monday off work spent laying on my couch watching movies and tv shows leaves out several mini naps as well as bathroom breaks.  It is compiled without reference to the specific times at which different acts of sloth occurred as the only times I looked at a clock were when I woke up on the couch a little after 1pm and when I realized it must be late because I was no longer hearing the sounds of revelry emanate from the human trash factory of a bar across from my apartment at around 3am.

I wake up mildly (for me) hungover with my joints and back aching from my 15 hour Sunday shift.  I fear that I am out of cigarettes and will thus have to venture off my couch and all the way down the street to procure my preferred brand of smokes.  I am delighted to find that I have not only a half of a pack in my work satchel (it's not a briefcase nor is it a euro-trash-homo man bag.  It's a fucking satchel) but also enough loose tobacco to get me through a chain smoking day off.  There is no better feeling than having the means of feeding one's lesser addiction available without any effort.

After dicking around on my phone for a while playing some stupid game in which you hunt prehistoric big game (The game isn't even that fun but I feel driven to unlock the sniper rifle before I delete it from my phone and find a different way to digitally piss my life away) until my phone dies.  I plug it in and forget that it exists.  I think perhaps I will start turning my phone off when I get home from work on Sunday night/Monday morning from now on and leave it off until Tuesday morning.  But then I start to worry that maybe I will miss an important call if I leave my phone off for such a long stretch of time.  Because I get TONS of important calls.  I must have gotten at least two so far this millennium.

Now that I've gotten my morning cigarette out of the way I have enough motivation to get some shit done.  And, of course, by get some shit done I mean find the remote control and turn on the television.

The first program I watch is Real Time with Bill Maher.  I like this show because I find that the panelists and guests are a lot more off the cuff then they are on other shows.  I watch this program first because Katie hates it and I like to watch it before too many news cycles have passed and it is no longer topical.  I don't really know why Katie hates Bill Maher.  Perhaps it's because she hates Irish people.  It was not a terribly good episode.  Ann Coulter was on and she scares me.  I don't know if this makes any sense but I think she looks like an alien spider meth whore that needs a better dye job.  Also, that Darrell Issa guy was one of the panelists.  He wears too much makeup and looks like a corpse.  Whenever he croaks from bullshit poisoning everyone at his funeral will remark that he looks exactly the same in his coffin as he did on TV.

Next I watched the Showtime drama Homeland.  I have been led to understand that this show won a bunch of awards.  I don't understand why, unless it was some sort of I meant to vote for Al Gore but I accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan because my eyes don't work/I can't read/I'm a fucking fuck-tard situation.  I mean, It's not THAT bad of a show it just doesn't hold a damn candle to Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire or even The Walking Dead.  All Homeland is is a mildly clever reworking of The Manchurian Candidate.  Also, I think a more appropriate title for the program would be the The Spy Who Cried or The Crazeballs Operative or The Increasingly Narrow Escapes of the Ginger Jihadist.

Then came Dexter (Spoiler Alert).  I'm sure many of you have heard me complain about this show already.  I have the same problem with this show that I do with Sons of Anarchy.  Both shows make shit far to complicated.  I like to refer to it as 'manufactured drama.'  There is always some problem that any reasonably intelligent person could solve in about twenty minutes that lasts an entire season.  Of course the guy who Dexter kills as revenge for the cop he murdered is a member of some sort of secret Eastern European mobster brotherhood and of course they all wear GPS tracking bracelets 'just in case.'  They even resorted to the old Fight Club imaginary friend scenario to wrap up the last plot line with the Doomsday Killer.  It was cool in Fight Club, now it's a cop out.  Fuck you Showtime, get better writers.

After watching these two steaming piles of shit (mind you, not nearly steamy or shitty enough for me not to spend two hours watching them 12 times a year) I felt the need to watch something of substance, so, I ordered up Cowboys and Aliens (mild spoiler alert).  I goddamn loved this movie.  Everything I heard about this movie was negative so I didn't expect much.  All I hoped for was cowboys, aliens, and some ass kicking and this film delivered in spades.  I do, however, kind of wish I hadn't watched it because I worry that it corrupted my mind for my own ridiculous western sub genre movie that I have been threatening to pen for ten years.  I think the best special effect in this movie was Olivia Wilde's eyes.  They were fucking creepy and eerie and make total sense later on when you find out she is a covert alien.  I assume they were contact lenses because, if they aren't, I think she might actually be an alien.  Let me know because I am enough of a weirdo to IMDB a cast list of a movie so I can reference an actress by name but not enough to google pictures of said actress to see if her eyes are real.  That would just be creepy.

At this point in the day I was starting to get pretty damn hungry so I mustered the will to get off my ass and procure some food.  I had to walk all the fuck way to 33rd and Wells (a whole 4 blocks from my den of laziness and ashtrays) to get a beef sandwich since the greatest beef sandwich joint in the history of the world across the street from my apartment closed six months ago.  The sandwich I got at Turtles was pretty good (certainly no Uncle Johnnies) but I always get frustrated when I ask for giardiniera on a sandwich and they put it on the side.  If I motherfucking wanted my peppers on the side I would have motherfucking asked for peppers on the motherfucking side.

Once I finished stuffing my face I was a little too sleepy to properly look for a decent movie to watch so I ended up watching a film called Stone (again, spoiler alert) starring Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton in which a soon to retire parole officer has one last prisoner to review for release before he calls it a career and then ends up getting seduced by said parolees psychotic and charming wife.  Everyone grows and learns shit and the bad guy ends up being good and the good guy ends up being bad.  Eh.  It was the darkest Lifetime movie I've ever watched.

At this point I was getting kind of desperate for available cinema so I turned to the film Priest (more spoilers, but I'm not quite sure why the hell anybody would ever watch this movie) starring Paul Bettany.  The plot in a nutshell is that in the future there has been a war between Vampires and humans for centuries.  The Vampires were winning until the Church trained a bunch of super soldier priests.  Now the remaining Vampires live in reservations/internment camps and the decommissioned priest soldiers have a hard time fitting into society in the giant Church run super cities.  Now, after years of peace, Vampire attacks have started outside the city walls in rural settlements but the Church refuses to acknowledge the impending threat.  Why won't they do anything about the attacking Vampires and why did they put all these murderous blood sucking monsters into camps rather than killing them (also, how the hell did they get them into camps?)?  Who the fuck knows.  Oh yeah, the Vampires also figured out how to make day walking humanoid Vampires.  But they only made one.  And he used to be one of the priest soldiers.  Luckily there is one renegade priest who refuses to follow orders and must finish both the war against Vampires as well as his own personal war.  Fuck this movie.  Watch it if you are mad at yourself.

Now, still unsatisfied, I scroll through literally every movie available on demand (HD only of course) and settle on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  This film was pretty great, but, I must admit to having a hard time following a complicated well written spy movie after watching seven plus hours of trashy TV drama, erotic thrillers, and crazy sci-fi action movies.  Lots of great 1970's mustaches in this movie. 

After Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy I no longer had a taste for the rest of the simplistic garbage available through Comcast OnDemand so I turned to the Science Channel.  I watched a documentary on asteroids, how they have affected life on Earth and how they likely will in the future.  This might have been the worst possible program in the history of the world for me to fall asleep to, as I had nothing but crazy Armageddon type dreams all night.  I did, however, awaken (just in time to get ready for work) with a new found appreciation for Jupiter.  That big bastard of a planet is the only reason Earth hasn't gotten the shit kicked out of it by Asteroids waaaaaaay more often then it does.  Big ass gravitational pull and whatnot.  For example; did you know that in 1994 an asteroid that would have otherwise collided with Earth was intercepted by Jupiter and resulted in an explosion that was larger than our entire planet?  Thanks Jupiter.  You are now my favorite planet that I don't live on and isn't named after a cartoon dog.            









      

YA and the decline of civilization

My awesome cool girlfriend KA wrote a blog on this topic earlier today that inspired me to add my two cents to the conversation.  I highly recommend that you read that before proceeding because it will prime you for my forthcoming rantings.  It is also is more amusing, not quite as mean, and undoubtedly better written.  So, that being said, on with the blogging.

YA.  Young Adult Literature.  My first problem with the unbelievable popularity of books that fall into this category (not genre.  I will address this important distinction later) is that the term "Young Adult" itself is complete and utter bullshit.  The proper terminology for the demographic that "Young Adult" attempts to describe would be "Teenager" or "Child."  Referring to a 15 year old as a "Young Adult" makes about as much sense as calling a 65 year old a "Fully Developed Child."  Also, using the word "Literature" when classifying a category of books implies, you know, some form of literary value.  Literature always comes in the form of a book (or ebook, pdf, whatever, fuck you), however, not every book is literature.  Hemingway and Fitzgerald wrote Literature, Dean Koontz and Danielle Steel write Books.  Got it?  So let's please start calling these books what they are; Teenager Books.

So, person who is probably not reading my not very widely circulated blog, why do you read YA?  Is it because you just think they are good stories?  Might I suggest one of the other ten bazillion books that have been published in the past few hundred years that were not written in the vocabulary of an 8th grader?  I know, I know, sometimes they use big words that you don't understand and you are justifiably frustrated when this happens.  There is an APP for that!  And the really cool thing is that when you encounter a word that you were not previously familiar with, upon looking up the definition of said word, you get to keep that word for your vocabulary!  Isn't that fucking cool?!?!  And then, when you learn lots and lots of new words there are a whole bunch of Big Kid books you will be able to read with very little difficulty.

Oh, that's not it?  It's because you just enjoy the "Genre," you say?  Well, guess what my barely literate ex-friend?  YA is not a Genre it's a Category.  The genre of Hunger Games is Sci-Fi.  The genre of Harry Potter is Fantasy.  The genre of Twilight is Horror.  They all fall into the YA CATEGORY.  If you like Sci-Fi or Fantasy or Horror there are a whole bunch of books that are written for As rather than YAs.  Did you buy your skinny jeans and snuggy in the children's section of the clothing store?  Then why the fuck are you buying your books off the YA shelf at the book store?

Oh!  It's because you like to read Coming-Of-Age stories that contain angsty teens because you can identify with those feelings?  Well, apart from being kind of creepy and clinging to your foregone youth unnaturally, this is still not a valid argument for the reading of YA by an A.  There are, in fact, coming of age stories written for adults.  Having a young person as a main character does not make a book YA.  If you like Horror and want to read a coming of age story read "IT" or, if you need vampires try "Salem's Lot." 

Look, I'm sure that some of these YA books have redeeming qualities.  I bet Harry Potter is a totally charming book series chock full of of whimsical, universally appealing Coming-Of-Age drama and I bet it is a lot of fun to read.  Chuck E Cheese is a lot of fun too.  But if you try getting into that joint without a kid everyone thinks you're mentally stunted or a child molester.  Those same judgements stand for grownups who read primarily YA.  

I dig that a good book is a good book and that reading a good story is fun and exercises one's imagination.  I'm not some sort of snob who sits around reading Dostoyevsky(not that there is anything wrong with that) thinking that I'm better than anybody.  I'm a total literary shit bird.  I'm not beefing on Harry Potter nor am I beefing on people for reading Harry Potter. I'm not even beefing on Twilight. What I am railing against are adults who almost exclusively consume what is unequivocally and without a doubt written for CHILDREN.  This behavior is intellectually lazy and portends badly for the already pitiful state of literacy in our nation.  I'm not against anyone reading any book ever. All I am saying is that people ought to Triage their reading lists. Adults reading YA= cool. Adults ONLY or mostly reading YA= fucked up.


Here are the ONLY three reasons for an adult to be reading teenager books;

1.  You are a parent, aunt, uncle, older sibling, or some form of legal guardian and would like to be able to talk about books with a young person in your life in order to facilitate bonding.

2.  You teach children and find it professionally helpful to be familiar with youth culture.  Kind of like how I serve drinks to old people and I know all about Medicare Part B and donut hole coverage.

3.  You are a pop culture nut and want to be familiar with every current fad and craze, or you are a rabid reader who reads everything you can get your hands on regardless of  genre or category.  You are only allowed to read YA in this situation if YA books amount to no more than 1 in 100 books on your bookshelf or e-reader.  100:1 reading ratio, no exceptions.

If none of these scenarios apply to you you are not allowed to read YA as an adult.  Unless, of course, you are either mentally stunted or a child molester.             

I just fixed our voting system, and therefore democracy, while dropping a duece.

I've been reading Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum's collaboration 'That Used to Be Us; How America Fell Behind in the World it Invented and How We Can Come Back'.  It presents a diagnosis of what is wrong with our nation and has a very hopeful outlook on how we can face the challenges of the globalized world we have created.  While I agree with both the diagnosis presented in the book as well as the possible solutions I cannot fathom any positive change in this country until we fix some major flaws that we have created in the processes we use to choose our elected officials.  It has been an informative and inspiring (to whatever extent I can be inspired by anything) read and combined with the non-stop coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign it has brought to the fore of my thoughts some long held curiosities in regards to the political processes that are at the center of the way we choose the leader of the free world;

1) Why the fuck do Iowa and New Hampshire have their primaries so goddamn early and why do we give a shit who they vote for?

2) Fuck the Electoral College.

3) There really ought to be real campaign finance reform.

I'm not going to go on a balls out rant and suggest anything too radical like that we ought to have a more parliamentary system for selecting Senators and Congressmen or that we should go to a direct popular vote and ditch the Electoral College.  I understand that our current system is OUR system and that there is a better chance of teaching an Asian to drive then of deeply changing or scrapping these systems.  I am going to simply offer a few common sense solutions to some very real problems we have in the way we elect our leaders that involve a few changes that will make our government more effective and better representative of the citizenry of the United States.

1) Why the fuck do Iowa and New Hampshire have their primaries so goddamn early and why do we give a shit who they vote for?

 

There is absolutely no reason that Iowa, New Hamphire, and South Carolina should have their caucus/primary so much earlier than everyone else.  I understand why these states want to have their primary elections so early; it gives them an unfair say in who will be nominated for the Presidency.  This is exactly why it is unfair to the other 47 states.  I know why they do it, but I am left in wonder at why the other states allow it.  These 3 states have a combined population of  8,988,189 or roughly 2.9% of the total population of the United States.  If a candidate fairs poorly with the less than 9 million tri-state-early-bird-asshole collective they are all but eliminated from the race and written off by the media and, therefore, the voting populace even though there are 300 million Americans yet to be represented.  

I for one have nothing in common with the average corn-holing Iowan, even less in common with the population of the small east coast state of New Hampshire, and less than nothing in common with the state owned liquor store shopping, first to secede from the union red neck fucks in South Carolina.  Not that my vote is more important than the residents of these states, but, their vote (and special interests) are certainly no more important than mine.  There should either be a federal law enacted that requires all states to hold their primary or caucus on the same day or all the the states that have the value of their electoral rights mitigated by these line jumpers should simply change the date of their primary to the same day as Iowa.  If Iowa makes it earlier, everyone else should make it earlier until finally they are forced to agree on a single date on which every American can cast their primary vote with equal enthusiasm because it is exactly as influential as every other American.  It is absolutely unfair that a state such as Iowa that is 91% white, the most religious state in the country  and accounts for less than 1% of the population holds the most important primary (caucus) and is hailed as a bell-weather for a nation that it is so clearly not at all an accurate representation of.

Fuck the Electoral College

 

In the 1992 presidential campaign Ross Perot garnered 19% of the popular vote and received zero electoral votes.  If there is a better statistic for illustrating how unrepresentative of the will of the people the Electoral College is I do not know it.  Not only does the Electoral College as it is currently devised fail to reflect the popular vote (in this case with the margin of error being +/- 19,741,065 votes) it also places the idea in the American psyche that a third party candidate can never be elected to the Presidency.  Even more disturbing than the aforementioned example is that the Electoral College in it's current incarnation suppresses the will of the general populace, gives a few voters a disproportionate say in the election of our President based simply on the luck of their geographical location, and further polarizes our already fractious and divided political system and electorate.

There is absolutely zero chance of a Republican Presidential candidate campaigning in New York or of a Democratic Candidate stumping in Texas in the months before the general election.  They will be far too busy trying to narrowly eke out a win Ohio, Florida, Nevada and Pennsylvania in order to secure the entirety of the electoral votes awarded by these and other 'swing states'.  Roughly two-thirds of the States have gone to the same party in four consecutive presidential elections and are considered a forgone conclusion not worthy of any serious presidential campaigning.  While there are obviously many factors that go into the allocation of both the funds and time spent on the campaign trail the awarding of electoral votes from a state in one block only further enhances the voice and subsequently the issues of any state that is not overwhelmingly consistently left or right.  While one might argue that this should in turn cause presidential candidates to be more toward the center in their campaign promises and the subsequent policy decistions to follow (if any candidate were, in theory, to hold to their promises once elected) it has quite the opposite effect.  This system pushes right leaning states farther to the right and left leaning states farther to the left and only serves to divide our already large and diverse electorate even further.

  While no Democrat in his right mind could hope to win the majority of the votes in Texas, perhaps, if there was any benefit to gaining votes in that state a Democrat might actually campaign there and gain some votes.  In business a company grows larger not by further saturating a market in which it has achieved substantial penetration and is considered ubiquitous but rather in a new or emerging market where it does not yet have a foot hold.  McDonald's and Coca-Cola are not focused on expanding in the U.S, they are pinning the growth of their companies in Asia and India where they are still largely considered a niche market.  The freer spread of these ideas will make the world a smaller and more similar place (not always necessarily for the good) the same way more evenly distributed campaign resources could make America a smaller place.  This idea expanded to the nation as whole would mean less political polarization between the red and blue states, effect a greater harmony in the electorate and foster a political environment that is more conducive to accomplishing the will of the people rather than one that simply requires a politician to simply charm and harp on certain political hot button issues.

If all states divided their electoral votes according to the percentage of popular vote received rather than awarding them in a block it would cause our presidential elections to be much more fair and make every American's vote count.  This was the point of the electoral college to begin with and since it no longer works it needs to be modified.

3) There really ought to be real campaign finance reform.

I am aware that there are already many campaign finance rules and regulations on the books, but, the fact is that they just aren't working.  Candidates are in a constant state of fundraising and this leaves them beholden to the people who sign the checks.  President Obama raised $750,000,000 during the 2008 election cycle and it is widely believed he will exceed that number before the 2012 election cycle comes to a close.  That is a lot of money that requires a lot of attention and, no doubt, a lot promises to the people making contributions.  If campaign spending were actually capped it would allow our candidates to focus more on campaigning with actual issues and our politicians to focus more on governing the country rather than trying to raise money during every waking moment. 

If candidates were forced to accept public financing for the general election it would put an end to the financial arms race that is presidential campaigning in the United States.  While this would cost the tax payer in the short term it would lessen the strangle hold of special interests on our politicians and allow our politicians to govern more effectively and in the interest of the American people rather than in the interest of the most lucrative donors to their campaign.  

This is to say nothing of the growing phenomenon of PACs and Super PACs that campaigns have been using to get around caps on campaign donations by wealthy individuals and corporations.  These either need to be eliminated for forbidden from mentioning any candidate by name.  While some think that eliminating these organizations would be an assault on free speech I would argue that the existence of these organizations is an assault on our democratic ideals the integrity of our electoral process.  

I really do think that America can adapt to this world that we largely created but only if we fix our electoral system so that it better reflects the electorate and gives our politicians the ability to steer our nation the right direction. 

 

My First Blog; An Introduction

So I've decided to start a blog.  Whilst I generally share Travis Bickle's disdain for morbid self examination, I figure, enough people I don't despise are blogging that it must not be too much of a waste of time.  I hope it will be a good opportunity to improve my writing skills and vent some built up hostility towards humanity in general since my gimpy back and chronic laziness have prevented me from utilizing the gymnasium for quite some time.  Now that I have spent the better part of an hour picking a font for the headline, here goes.

Things you can look forward to should you decide to regularly read my blog;

-Bad grammar and spelling.  Corrections and observations are welcome, as I spent more time sneaking booze into school, smoking in the wash room, forging transcripts and reading unassigned material than doing homework and attending class when I was younger.

-Pictures and stories about my cats.  I have four (4) cats.  Because I'm an idiot.  They are sometimes adorable

and sometimes evil little bastards.

Example of adorable; Mysterion is sleeping in an old flower pot(pictured above) on top of our kitchen cabinets at the moment.  She is much to large for said flower pot but she has been sleeping in it since she killed all the flowers that originally lived in it and claimed it for a bed when she was just a wee little kitten.  Now, almost fully grown, she curls up into a little ball and overflows the sides.  It's the cutest shit ever.  Example of bastardy; My cats tried to kill me last night.  Really.  Around 5am they pulled all the drawers of my dresser to a fully open position and jumped around on them until the dresser fell towards my bed mere inches from my face.  And then, while I tried in vain to fall back to sleep, they proceeded to vomit outside my bedroom door at a volume one would expect from a three hundred pound truck who just took too many pep pills after a meal consisting of bad oysters rather than a nine pound calico.  Dicks.

-Foul language.  I swear alot.  If you know me in real life (which you probably do) I am sure you are already aware of this.  It has been said that swearing is a crutch used in place of a well developed vocabulary.  I may not have the best vocabulary, but irregardless, I just like to swear.  I like the way it sounds, I think many curse words carry a weight and meaning all their own and could not possibly be substituted for a different word that has not been labeled as inappropriate.  I find substitution words and phrases (dang, fudge, shoot, shut the front door) to be most irritating and a true mental crutch as well as a mark of cowardice.  Also, if you didn't get that my usage of 'irregardles' was meant as a joke; you can kiss my dick-hole.

Seemingly contradictory and probably unpopular political views.  I think all drugs should be legalized, I favor some form of a flat tax, and I think that health and wellness care should considered a basic human right in any enlightened and industrialized nation,  however, I think that if a person lets themselves get too fat to walk they should get a free ice pick to the temple rather than a rascal scooter.

Lots of stories about stupid drunks and crazy people.  I work at a bar in Uptown.

That's a midget with a walker dressed like a pirate wench waiting for the bus next to a hillbilly guy in overalls.  This was the same week that I threw a little person out of the bar for taking his shoes off and interpretive dancing during a matinee show.  No, there wasn't a convention.  That's just kind of how Uptown is.

So, that's how it's going to be.  You probably knew as much and have already heard me tell these stories and yell these rants many times because I am a chronic repeater.  Or, if you were just wondering about the asshole who wrote the mean or inappropriate retort to your friend's Facebook status update now you know.  And can go fuck yourself.