Prologue:
It took a little longer for me to find a job after moving than I thought it would. About two months longer. So I was broke. Well, college student-broke. I still have things like an apartment and an internet-connected computer and guitars and an obnoxiously over-powered cell phone, and $6. But I was broke. So I wasn't able to pay my car payment. I'm also horrible with calling companies and wading through phone menus and talking to representatives, especially companies to whom I owe large quantities of money.
Chapter 1:
At the behest of my mom, whose credit rating will also suffer by my inaction, I finally call the company that owns my car until I give them enough money. My goal is to defer a payment or two until I'm back on my feet a little. They tell me that the payments need to be current before I can do that, so
This is boring I'm gonna go play Halo.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Gather 'round, Nation.
I'm an American. So I get to demand stuff.
1. No more super-loud motorcycles.
I believe the days of the iconic American biker are behind us. The part of our society that idolized the solitary rebel or the Hell's Angel as rugged, idealized individuals no longer includes the smarter or classier part. The only people who like bikers now are either trailer trash or other bikers. I know it's small potatoes for any governing legal body, but I think it should be put to a people's vote whether or not we put a cap on how loud motorcycles can be. They don't have to be any less powerful or dangerous to ride. Limiting the ways I can hurt myself of my own free will is absolutely un-American. But let's limit the power of one asshole to wake up an entire neighborhood at 2am because HE thinks it's cool.
2. Smaller portions. Everywhere.
There was a period of 6 months before I moved where just about every meal I ate was at a restaurant. While I believe this is absolutely the life for which I was intended, I did learn a lot about what the restaurant industry thinks of Americans. It's been in the headlines for probably the last ten years that Americans are disgustingly super-fat. And while I believe it's somewhat American of us to flaunt our nation's wealth by eating however much we want of whatever we want, I think a popular vote would favor smaller portions for a smaller price. Only teenagers need a 1/2 pound burger with a mountain of french fries. For the rest of us, a modestly sized burger and a small order of fries will usually get the job done, if you can eat slowly enough to let your body understand that there's food going into it. Then maybe I'd be able to afford to go out and eat all the time and stimulate the economy, instead of buying one loaf of bread every two weeks.
3. A stricter Truck License.
I'm aware that there is a special license needed to own or operate semi trucks and high powered industrial trucks. But how often do you see these F250 Super Duper Duty monstrosities without a speck of dirt on them. Why do you need a truck that big? Does your entire diet consist of free pizza and beer from helping friends of friends move? Does it make your truck easier to find in parking garages because it sticks halfway out into the lane? This is a tricky one, because I believe a majority of this country still believes that a god put us here to use up this planet's resources because the end-times are near. I don't want to go too far into why that majority of this country is dumber than a brick, but in extreme summary, people have been saying we were on armageddon's doorstep for thousands of years. So in all probability, the world isn't ending. So we might need to think a little bigger than "I wanna big truck, uh huh huh huh" in terms of what we do with this planet. Let's make the idiots drive cars like everyone else and take a step towards the freakin' future.
4. Admit we have no clue what we're doing with the Middle East.
There just is no right answer. Nothing is going to fix it. Life has always sucked over there and it will always suck. Anything we do over there is only always going to make things worse. So I say we just get the hell out and stop poking the entire region with a stick. Just because they're not going to stop being pissed off doesn't mean we can't be the bigger people and let them sort it out themselves (or at least continue doing whatever they're doing instead of sorting it out). I realize it's a smaller and smaller world these days, but they're all the way on the other side of it. So who cares.
5. Legalize pot.
Come on. I don't even smoke pot and I think we should just settle this one already. If there was any shred of scientific integrity to our society and our government, we would have decriminalized marijuana and just started taxing the shit out of it. Money makes the world go 'round, and America is the entire world. So I would have assumed that even maintaining absolute power over a people (even using arbitrary laws, like marijuana laws) would come in a distant second for our money-worshipping government. That and I'm just sick of hearing about it too. I think parents worried about how the legalization of pot would affect their children haven't considered the effect legalization would have on the whole counter-culture anti-establishment image of pot. Once it's legal, it's common and dorky. You can go down to the store and buy it with toilet paper and deodorant. After a few years it'd be less threatening than alcohol, and we'd have paid off the national debt. You're welcome, America.
1. No more super-loud motorcycles.
I believe the days of the iconic American biker are behind us. The part of our society that idolized the solitary rebel or the Hell's Angel as rugged, idealized individuals no longer includes the smarter or classier part. The only people who like bikers now are either trailer trash or other bikers. I know it's small potatoes for any governing legal body, but I think it should be put to a people's vote whether or not we put a cap on how loud motorcycles can be. They don't have to be any less powerful or dangerous to ride. Limiting the ways I can hurt myself of my own free will is absolutely un-American. But let's limit the power of one asshole to wake up an entire neighborhood at 2am because HE thinks it's cool.
2. Smaller portions. Everywhere.
There was a period of 6 months before I moved where just about every meal I ate was at a restaurant. While I believe this is absolutely the life for which I was intended, I did learn a lot about what the restaurant industry thinks of Americans. It's been in the headlines for probably the last ten years that Americans are disgustingly super-fat. And while I believe it's somewhat American of us to flaunt our nation's wealth by eating however much we want of whatever we want, I think a popular vote would favor smaller portions for a smaller price. Only teenagers need a 1/2 pound burger with a mountain of french fries. For the rest of us, a modestly sized burger and a small order of fries will usually get the job done, if you can eat slowly enough to let your body understand that there's food going into it. Then maybe I'd be able to afford to go out and eat all the time and stimulate the economy, instead of buying one loaf of bread every two weeks.
3. A stricter Truck License.
I'm aware that there is a special license needed to own or operate semi trucks and high powered industrial trucks. But how often do you see these F250 Super Duper Duty monstrosities without a speck of dirt on them. Why do you need a truck that big? Does your entire diet consist of free pizza and beer from helping friends of friends move? Does it make your truck easier to find in parking garages because it sticks halfway out into the lane? This is a tricky one, because I believe a majority of this country still believes that a god put us here to use up this planet's resources because the end-times are near. I don't want to go too far into why that majority of this country is dumber than a brick, but in extreme summary, people have been saying we were on armageddon's doorstep for thousands of years. So in all probability, the world isn't ending. So we might need to think a little bigger than "I wanna big truck, uh huh huh huh" in terms of what we do with this planet. Let's make the idiots drive cars like everyone else and take a step towards the freakin' future.
4. Admit we have no clue what we're doing with the Middle East.
There just is no right answer. Nothing is going to fix it. Life has always sucked over there and it will always suck. Anything we do over there is only always going to make things worse. So I say we just get the hell out and stop poking the entire region with a stick. Just because they're not going to stop being pissed off doesn't mean we can't be the bigger people and let them sort it out themselves (or at least continue doing whatever they're doing instead of sorting it out). I realize it's a smaller and smaller world these days, but they're all the way on the other side of it. So who cares.
5. Legalize pot.
Come on. I don't even smoke pot and I think we should just settle this one already. If there was any shred of scientific integrity to our society and our government, we would have decriminalized marijuana and just started taxing the shit out of it. Money makes the world go 'round, and America is the entire world. So I would have assumed that even maintaining absolute power over a people (even using arbitrary laws, like marijuana laws) would come in a distant second for our money-worshipping government. That and I'm just sick of hearing about it too. I think parents worried about how the legalization of pot would affect their children haven't considered the effect legalization would have on the whole counter-culture anti-establishment image of pot. Once it's legal, it's common and dorky. You can go down to the store and buy it with toilet paper and deodorant. After a few years it'd be less threatening than alcohol, and we'd have paid off the national debt. You're welcome, America.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Dear Fire Trucks,
I realize that the reason you need to be so loud is because you are so big. I do not, however, know the reason you need to be so big.
If cities didn't have fire hydrants, I could understand that you would need your ear-splitting, gut-rumbling 56-cylinder engine (or whatever) to quickly carry hundreds of gallons of water to the site of a fire.
In a world where modern technology hadn't rendered ladders extremely collapsible and compact, and firehoses capable of being folded and coiled to the point of being almost nonexistent when not in use, I might see a reason for you to be sixty feet long and weigh 9 million pounds.
If the majority of emergency calls came from halfway up Mt. Rainier and not down nicely-paved city streets, I could even let the logic behind your behemoth off-roading wheels slide.
If this weren't the richest country in the universe, maybe we couldn't afford to develop the technology to suitably dampen the racket produced by our state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line response vehicles.
But since all of these scenarios were just made up by me, Fire Trucks, perhaps you could stay in tonight so I can enjoy having the windows open. It's nice out and you're ruining it for me. We have plenty of buildings. Let a few of 'em go. I can't hear the movie I'm watching.
Love,
Sam
If cities didn't have fire hydrants, I could understand that you would need your ear-splitting, gut-rumbling 56-cylinder engine (or whatever) to quickly carry hundreds of gallons of water to the site of a fire.
In a world where modern technology hadn't rendered ladders extremely collapsible and compact, and firehoses capable of being folded and coiled to the point of being almost nonexistent when not in use, I might see a reason for you to be sixty feet long and weigh 9 million pounds.
If the majority of emergency calls came from halfway up Mt. Rainier and not down nicely-paved city streets, I could even let the logic behind your behemoth off-roading wheels slide.
If this weren't the richest country in the universe, maybe we couldn't afford to develop the technology to suitably dampen the racket produced by our state-of-the-art, top-of-the-line response vehicles.
But since all of these scenarios were just made up by me, Fire Trucks, perhaps you could stay in tonight so I can enjoy having the windows open. It's nice out and you're ruining it for me. We have plenty of buildings. Let a few of 'em go. I can't hear the movie I'm watching.
Love,
Sam
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