a departure...

I’m recovering from what I think is a spider bite, I’m no entomologist, so my self-diagnosis is specious at best, but that’s my best guess on what is causing the swelling. I was hoping for super human strength and web slinging ability, but I think all I have to look forward to is sepsis. I’m pretty sure the spiders that are around my house aren’t radioactive, and then again I don’t see any radon vents on the outside of the building. Whatever, I live on the third floor, have fun with your alpha particles ground dwellers.

Once again I spent my weekend being a wage slave, and once again I remain befuddled on how exactly I got into this predicament. Then I remember that college degree that I haven’t been using for coming up on 8 years now, plus my time spent gleefully unemployed (Thanks dot com bubble!). Plus all this time I wasn’t planning on reaching the 30th birthday that is less than a month away now, so discretionary spending wasn’t exactly in my vocabulary. I’ve actually been reformed. My savings and spending are actually on track to possibly make it past my 35^th birthday. Of course with my eating and drinking habits that plan won’t be seen to fruition, but I should have a few shekels to pass on to the state.

A few of us cost conscious worker bees here in the office have what we call a “lunch club”. After determining that going out for lunch 20 times a month (5 days a week, 4 weeks a month) probably was costing us 200 to 250 dollars. We decided to pool resources and enjoy the economies of scale that are loaves of bread and sliced deli meat. In the end the 4 of us realize about 80% savings, this is money that can now go to pay for the ever rising price of gas or alcohol or pornography or whatever it is I still spend my money on. Why is there so much month left at the end of the money? Plus I don’t get to escape my office building, so if you are wondering what the true value of getting outside for an hour and seeing the sun is, it’s about $175 per month. Well, it’s obvious why “miser” and “misery” come from the same Latin root. Why we are all looking forward to retiring and living on a fixed income is beyond me. On a positive note, my retirement fund is on a bit of an upswing. I checked some old lottery tickets, and actually hit 3 numbers in the last Mega Millions drawing, I get to collect a whopping 7 dollars. Since I spent 5 dollars on the lottery ticket (raising my odds from one out of never to 5 out of never seemed like a good idea), I’m going to take my 2 dollars and spend it on 2 more lottery tickets. I’ll be independently wealthy in no time.

Yesterday was Mother’s day, and after having a nice quiet dinner with mom, I sat down to watch 60 Minutes. I’m not sure why I do it, because it always ends up making me angry. The final story of the show was about the Dixie Chicks and their upcoming album, apparently this collection of hick pop is some sort of cultural touchstone because of the lead singer’s criticism of President Bush. The Chicks are unapologetic, which doesn’t really surprise me considering they didn’t really have any complex views on the matter, they just forgot that the large percentage of their audience was gun loving trailer trash that thinks a red white and blue sticker of Calvin urinating on a Ford symbol is the ultimate badge of patriotism. My real problem with the whole thing is that we are talking about the Dixie Chicks, don’t get me wrong, they’re pretty good, write their own songs play their own instruments and hell I’m glad they have opinions. But what the hell happened to bands that were political and confrontational? Doesn’t anyone remember the Clash or Rage Against the Machine or even Bob Marley? What the hell happened to our angst? Sure Bono is off saving Africa, that’s cool, that place is a whole mess I don’t want to deal with, but can no one with a guitar say anything more than “I support the troops?” I’m sure I’m asking too much, but Kanye was right George Bush doesn’t care about black people, he also doesn’t care about brown people, yellow people, and middle and lower class white people. GWB cares about money and where his cronies can get more of it. I sound like a ranting leftist, but believe me things can and should be better around this place. Ask yourself if the departing chairman of Exxon Mobil gets a 400 million dollar bonus, and there are millions without health care in this country, couldn’t we maybe have taken half that money and used it for the greater good? Once you are done asking yourself ask the people in charge and see if you like their answers.

While I’m still on my high horse, you all should be shocked and awed that the NSA is monitoring all our phone calls looking for “terrorists.” You should also be shocked and awed at the fact that the NSA is now spying on journalists and news organizations looking for “leaks” and finally you should be shocked and awed that the congressional inquiry into the actions of the NSA was stopped dead in its tracks. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, this is actually happening, and I really don’t have anything to hide, and probably 95% of America doesn’t either, but this is a direct erosion to the Bill of Rights, and that probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone anymore, but 230 years ago a bunch of educated rich white guys decided that concentrated power in the government was a road to doom so they set about a system to prevent that from happening. And over the last 100 to 150 years the elite and politically greedy have been doing their best to take that away from all of us. We all pay taxes, so we all have a little bit of equity in this democracy, it’s a shame to see us asleep at the wheel and losing whatever privileges come with being a citizen. Granted not being blown up is a privilege, but I also think that writing a blog about civil liberties and being able to fly on an airplane regardless of your opinion of the current regime is a privilege also, and one that is probably more important than not being blown up, since there are plenty of other ways to prevent that. Namely not provoking nuclear capable religious fanatics, but I’ll leave that for another blog.

I’m gonna shut up now, and go fashion myself a stylish tinfoil hat to keep the government from running their sticky fingers through the dusty corners of my mind. I’ll leave the politics alone, and will get back to blogging about debauchery next time.