Denver Cops on the Ball

This is too great not to post to my little corner of the Intardweb. Speaking of Intards...don't dare the fine officer to "do it again". NSFW for some dirty, nasty, scumbag hippie profanity.

Cingular is offensive

I have yet another rant. Cingular has started running this stupid commercial for their MP3 phones. Now, a phone that plays MP3's is kinda cool. The technology is pretty amazing and that somebody decided the world should revolve around your phone is visionary.

The problem is that Cingular apparently will allow anyone to get one of their phones. They have two college dudes who clearly use too much cannabis playing one of the greatest rock tracks of all time. Rock the Casbah is the best song on a very good record. Combat Rock is a great record from first track to last. The song is a seminal piece of music. These two pot heads should be old that they must have heard the song for years.

No, you morons. Joe's not singing "Stock the Cat Box." Why would you think that? Does that fit in at all with any of the lyrics? I know most popular music doesn't always make much sense, but Rock the Casbah does. They're pretty easy to hear. They're reasonably clear, for a rock song. That's what's so retarded. They're screwing up lyrics that most people in their age group know, understand, and can speak coherently about. I was going to say "eloquently", but further reflection prompted me to correct the error of my ways.

Ever wonder how they could get that song so, so wrong...when its on their phone? Didn't they have to download it? Didn't they have to have a source for it? Wouldn't that mean it'd be damn near impossible to get the song to the phone without knowing what its called? How could you download a song without having its title? Since the title is the same as the words in the chorus, it would take a heck of large bong load to screw that one up. And these idiots were getting in a car. They're clearly too messed up to drive. Those fools will kill someone.

Thanks for letting another college educated, talentless hack choose your ad campaign. Think about this: that was probably the best idea they had. Consider what might have been.

You should read this

Here's a link to my boy Josh's blog. You really should read this; its very instructive as to the mindset of the current voter, and the type of people you'll end up with because of this election.

A little back story: Josh was riding his brand new motorcycle home from his motorcycle safety class, on surface roads. This crazy woman decides to pass him from directly behind him. She moves to the left lane, passes him...and then for some reason we can't figger out, she brakes, after having cut him off. With nowhere to go, Josh goes OTB. Her insurance company pays out to the limit of her coverage...which was the minimum. He had to sue her to get the rest. Josh's account of it can be read here, and there are a couple other posts he's made about that situation, too. Go check it out.

Wrecked!

Found out a couple days ago that a good friend of mine got wrecked by some crazy lady on his brand new motor-sickle. Not even 600 miles on his bike yet. Crazy lady was behind him, then went to pass him, made eye contact with him as she was going by, and then cut in front of him and hit her brakes.
The good news is that my bro is fine, except for some bruises. He went OTB, and the bike landed on him, which is where the bruises came from. He jacked up his helmet and jacket in addition to probably totalling his scooter. The Crazy Lady pretty well copped to causing it in the Police report. Of course, it apparently didn't do all that much damage to her rig. Ain't it the way? Seems my bro's insurance company is going after everything on this one, and he's got gap insurance in case they don't. He'll end up with a new bike out this, more than likely.
Wanna guess where he was coming from when this happened? Think about it...what would be the most ironic thing you can think of? That's right: motorcyle riding school. Since he's fine, that's funny!

Lies, Damn lies, and MySpace

If MySpace ever had any value (I don't know if it ever did; I found about it on TV. They said its where teenage girls go to get hooked up with sexual predators...or something like that) that value is totally used up now. I just checked out the MS page of a girl I work with. I bookmarked it with "comedy" in the title of said bookmark.
This lead to an interesting discussion on the topic of human psyche yesterday at work. Hey, I can't always be doing what I'm supposed to do, can I? At any rate, its become common knowledge that this kid we work with has an MS account, because she tells lots of people about it. That's a separate issue that will be discussed later. Here's where this gets interesting.
She claimed her height was 5'7". I think she may be fudging that, but we'll give her the benefit of the doubt. However, she claims her body type is "average". Ummmm...yeah, as long as "average" means "shaped like a barrel". She weighs at least 200 lbs, and probably a lot more. That's definately where the fudging comes in...along with cakes, ice cream, bacon triple cheeseburgers...and diet Cokes. She claims a religeous faith, but according to her MS friends, she sparks up the chiba and drinks to excess.
I bring all this up partly for comedic purposes, but also to illustrate the discussion of yesterday. She's hardly the only one. If anything, I'd be surprised to find out anyone on MS had a truthful, honest account. The question becomes, then, is she lying to attract someone that couldn't attract before, or is that how she sees herself?
Remember "Collateral" with Jamie Foxx and that short guy that jumps on couches on TV? The cabbie always made it sound like he was working towards his dream goal. It turned out that he was doing nothing of the kind. That would seem to be more the case with the majority of people in the world. So many people have dreams that they could reach with some work, but either through fear, lack of confidence, or lack of desire, they don't even try. Yet, they'll talk about it as if they do, or have, or are actively working on it.
What is it about people that they just can't be honest, with themselves or anyone else? What drives them to have to lie about themselves? Or do they really believe their "cover story"?
Because I work in the tactical gear industry, I run into people on a fairly regular basis who claim to be what they're not. One kid I heard about came back from the Army on leave, and told his dad that he was the was the youngest kid to graduate "Special Forces Sniper School", and that he was with 10th SFG. Dad got all chuffed and contacted the newspapers, who sent a reporter to write a story on this kid. The article got published. One of the members of the forum I am an admin on found it, and posted a link. Now, this particular forum is mostly .mil and LE types, who don't take kindly to people claiming stuff they haven't done. This kid went home to a weekend with the family, and came back to work to find out that members of our forum had used their contacts in the service to let the kid's platoon leader, sergeant major, and company commander know what he allowed to happen. He claimed to be something he wasn't, and ended up with a maxed field grade Article 15, and had to write a formal letter of apology to 10th Group. I heard that his extra duty (45 days of it) consisted of being given to 10th Group to do whatever they wanted to with him, but I can't confirm it. I suspect he ended up polishing things that were never polished before. All that because he couldn't be truthful with himself, his family, or a reporter. He still had three years to do in the Army. One forum member described it like this: "remember having that dream where you show up at work with no pants? That's his life for the next three years."
I know a guy who claims to have been a Ranger. Except that he called the obstacle course at Camp Darby the "Queen Darby" (its real name is the Darby Queen). That fact, on top of many others, got called. Then he had to backtrack and lie some more to cover it. In the end, he lost all credibility with the people that he was trying to build credibility with. Oops.
Why is it people feel the need to do that? I don't understand. I won't claim that I've never lied, but I've tried to always be the person I appeared to be. I'm a low speed, high drag nobody with a pretty cool job that I got because I had developed some useful skills that were needed by my employer. In my job, I get to meet a lot of people who are bona fide heroes, badasses, straight up shoot-you-in-the-face killers, and would be celebrities if what they did for a living was celebrated in the press. Its no wonder so many people want to be them, but its also no wonder that so few can be. Those same "can't be's" are the same ones that "wannabe" and "claimtabe". For the life of me, I can't understand why. If you wanna be one of them, then go do what they did to get where they are. If you can't, be honest with yourself and say "I can't". If everyone could do it, everyone would do it. There are more jobs than I can count that make the world work everyday. If they didn't need to be done, they wouldn't be paid.
I guess what I'm getting at is that if you're not happy where you are, do something about it. This is America. Opportunity is there, and so is copious amounts of help. If you don't wanna do it, then don't. Just don't claim that you did. All that happens in the end is that you lose a whole lot more than you were willing to bet, and gain a whole lot less than you wanted to win. Its too high a price to die unhappy because you spent your life as a lie.

voting

I just re-read a story that re-blows my mind. An elected "official", Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D of GA, threw a hissy fit when stopped by Capitol Police for not following the rules at a security checkpoint . She threw her cell phone at a law enforcement officer, and then cried foul, claiming "inappropriate touching" when they detained her. She wasn't wearing her congressional pin, which is a sort of ID badge (not enough of one, in my opinion). I suppose she expected the Police to remember what she looks like and just let her through, because she's been elected, after all. Now, if she looks like this all the time, I gotta say she'd be pretty memorable, in that crazy-lady-with-200-cats sort of way.
But the bigger question here isn't Rep. McKinney's obviously detached perception of reality. It isn't even her "I'm above everything because I'm a congress-person" attitude, exhibited by her claims of being assaulted when, in point of fact, she could have (and probably should have) been arrested for battery of a law enforcement officer. The bigger question has less to do with the representative and her kind. It rests with the people.
Why is it that so many people around the world can see her as a caricature of a lawmaker, a political whacko (its a technical term) and someone that most of us wouldn't be represented by, when she repeatedly wins elections? What do people see in these fringe candidates that gets them elected? Are there really that many nut jobs in America?
Here's a less extreme example. When I lived in deepest, darkest southern California (the border was a mere 15 minute drive away) I was represented at the Federal level by Barbara Boxer. She's far more liberal than I am, but that's not really why I disliked her representation.
I disagree with the rules of the game as they are at this time. Representatives are in Washington DC to get money for the states. I don't like the way it works, but until that changes, those are the rules that govern. Barbara has failed in that job, getting California less and less funding every time around. Diane Feinstein has garnered more funding for San Francisco's alleged illegal immigration problem (must be importing hippies from somewhere) than the rest of California gets. That's just not right, and it points directly to a failure in representation.
Which really just means that an innefective employee has the job. OK, then, vote her out and replace her. Californians of various political stripes have voiced their displeasure; its not just us whacky kill-em-all-for-oil neo-cons. She's been eminently beatable for the past couple elections. But what do the people do? The reelect her.
I suspect that this phenomena (and I'm not speaking strictly of female elected officials, those are just two of the plethora of examples I could use, from both genders and all political affiliations) rests with the fact that Americans have grown lazy. I started voting when I came of age, and haven't ever missed voting in an election that I was eligible to vote in. But there are family members, friends, and aquaintances of mine that can't be bothered to vote. At all. Many that do don't put in serious study into their candidates because of busy schedules. I've taken the easy road from time to time and voted the party line, but I've been far less disappointed when I have, compared to "if I hadn't". In those cases, I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting; the candidates were known entities.
What happens now, it seems, is that when there are new candidates, such as presidential hopefuls, we the people vote more on appearances than policies. Once they're in office, the easy way is to keep them there. More's the pity.
In the end, regardless of what political stripe one wears, one gets the government one votes for. Sort of a political "you get what you pay for." When people get elected and they do something rash, foolish, illegal, immoral, or criminal, the finger of guilt, at the end of the day, points to the people that put them there.

Are they as stupid as I think they are?

I'm really scratching my head these days. The current crop of commercials has me baffled. And the bafflement (yes, I just created that word) extends more towards the advertisers than the advertisments. The commercials I'm seeing these days really make me wonder who is making them. The products advertised are OK, for the most part, but the ads themselves are getting worse and worse.
Here's an example: The Roaming Gnome, Denouncer of Travel Myths. Not a bad concept, and the Gnome is somewhat endearing. The ads, though, baffle me with their contradictions. To whit: the ad talks about the myth that booking air and lodging separately is less expensive. The Gnome rejects the supposition, backing it with fact (way to go, Intellectually Honest Gnome!) and making the point of the commercial: if you book both at the same time (with that travel vendor, of course) you'll save money. OK! Makes great sense. I'll do that next time I need to travel.
That is, until they get to the next part of the commercial: the second Travel Myth. "Gnomes make horrible tour guides", which the Gnome vehemently disagrees with, claiming "We're the best!" The next scene is a double decker lorry (a bus, in the US) running over sidewalks and fire hydrants, with that crack head Roaming Gnome behind the wheel. What's the message here? Is the Gnome only to be believed part of the time? Is the whole commercial a lie? Who signed off on that damn spot? See what I mean? It leads to scratching my head again.
This is hardly the only one. What's that damn kid that eats cereal all day getting paid for? Isn't that other goober his boss? What's so hard about firing that geek? It doesn't sell that cereal to me, and I'm a cereal eater. Oddly enough, I've never seen a commercial for my favorite: Reese's Puffs. Perhaps that's a good reason for it to be a favorite.
I'm sick of having my intelligence insulted, and I've begun to make a concious effort to avoid buying the products that are seen in those rediculous ads. Here it is, Madison Avenue: take a good, hard look at who's writing this dreck, and see what's happening at the schools they're coming from. Something is seriously wrong here, and I don't think its because I have hyper-sensitive perception skills or that I'm over-educated in the area of comprehension. The real answer is that there are people out there doing jobs they're not qualified to do. The work they broadcast across the globe proves it. I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

I doubt it'll make a scrap of difference to anyone but me...but I have no problem allowing my politics influence my buying decisions when it suits my purposes. :)