My Sick Mind

I was going to write about a confrontation I had at the gym today, involving a spin class and what one perceived as a slight and I perceived as my preference - but that took a back seat to something that happened recently involving my favorite social interaction, Facebook.   George Carlin did a bit about how being an asshole was relative to the distance.  Someone on TV was really AN ASSHOLE. The guy in the car who cut you off is An Asshole, and the one next to you in line was [whispering] pretty much of an asshole.   Distance is a great defender.  Such is the case with the Internet.   In this environment, we can comment, tweak or otherwise say things that we wouldn't normally say to people to their face.  It's a great insulator.  Even when we have a named sign-in and people know us (like on Facebook) we feel free to stop over, pick fights and leave. Likewise, our posts on Facebook and Twitter can be dissected and analyzed to the exte...

"All that dies, dies for a reason. To put its strength into the season." - Survival , Yes I remember when I bought Yes' "Fragile" album.   I was at the Record Museum store in Audubon, early in 1972.  I had heard Roundabout on the radio and wanted to know what else was going on.  I took the album outside and pried open the shrink-wrap.  This was the day of LPs, and some of them had amazing artwork.  Roger Dean's cover and album artwork is iconic.  I sat and gazed at it.  When I got the record home and listened, a love affair was born. Forward to September 13, 1972.   Yes released "Close to the Edge," and being the hip 15-year-old that I was, I had read about the album in Circus magazine.  I invaded the Franklin Music store in the Echelon Mall and asked a clerk if they had the album.  It was in a carton of them below the display rack.  They hadn't put them out yet.  I was the first person in Camden County to have...

I awoke (abruptly) at 3:00am and found myself thinking back to my high school days.  My thoughts drifted to a geometry teacher we had who would start most of his sentences with "Um, supposing..."   And it wasn't the normal 'um' that some of us use when we are trying to connect our thoughts. This um was a major pronouncement - as though he was proclaiming some monumental thought.   Um Like that.   The thing I remembered was that we used to keep track of the "um's" and the "supposings" with those hand-written roman numeral charts like I suppose Nero used to use when he was deciding who he would throw to the lions [do not research my historical reference]   Those of us who were in the gang would laugh amongst ourselves and gaze knowingly whenever he would say "um" or "supposing," and laugh harder and gaze more staringly when he would use "Um, supposing" in the same sentence.  That was a real hol...

The Internet is a great source of information.   Some of the information, however, is crap.  And there's no place like Facebook for crap.  So-called "friends" can share posts with other so-called "friends" and the friends accept it as fact because, well - it's on the Internet, and it must be true. Or crap. I had three shares on my Facebook page today, and each one took about two minutes to search and destroy. The first one  was a post about drunk driving, with a gruesome photograph of a woman allegedly thrown through a car windshield after allegedly being involved in an accident allegedly involving drunk driving. It contained the text:   went to the party and remembered what you said. You asked me not to drink alcohol, so I drank a Sprite instead. I felt proud of myself, as you said I should feel. You said I should not drink and drive, contrary to what some friends told me. I made a healthy choice and your advice was correct, as it always is. A...

Every so often, one of my sixteen readers will ask, "Why don't you update your blog more often?"  And to them I say, "Parachutes." Because that makes as much sense as anything else I could say.   It is true that I don't write as much as I used to.  It's partly due to the fact that most of what I think has already been written and partly because I have come to the grim realization that what I write doesn't matter.   Drivers merging onto freeways don't yield ( even though the sign says "Yield"), people still throw their trash everywhere and we still celebrate New Year's Day .  Life goes on in spite of my protest or angst over it.  Nothing changes.   We live in our little worlds.   It seems that the more "worldly" we become, the more our world shrinks.  We are hooked-up to the Internet via our phones, which are really tiny handheld computers, and the size of our sphere of influence extends as far as our circ...

Perhaps I'm getting older - scratch that, I know I'm getting older - but perhaps it's because I'm gaining experience that I see and hear things in a different light than I used to, and in a different light than my younger (less experienced) peers hear them.   Take, for instance, the sad and curious state of affairs with Manti T'eo.  The story broke to nationwide curiosity, and I understood that.  What I failed to understand was the continued pursuit of the story to the extent that he wound up discussing his problems on the TV with Dr. Phil. Jim Nabors has finally married his partner of 34 years and it's national news.  Emmylou Harris was caught drunk-driving and even though there were no injuries, the story made the newspaper.  Dan Marino had a child out of wedlock - in 2005.   All of those things made some form of a stir on the Internet or your local newspaper, or both.  The point here is that all of them are private concerns of the peo...

I wish people could get as worked-up over actual issues as they do about losing Twinkies and buying Powerball tickets.  I suppose the real issues are too stressful, so they tackle the ones that are easy. I listen to sports talk radio during the day.  Usually, it's a respite from the stress of the day. A chance to listen to people discussing mundane issues.  Lately, the talk has centered around Eagles head coach Andy Reid and his almost certain dismissal.  I hear fans screaming and complaining about the team's poor performance and gnashing their teeth over their 7-straight losses.  I wonder (quietly to myself) if they would be as upset if their kid came home with a bad report card or threw a rock at the neighborhood cat?  I'd guess not. The relative anonymity of the talk radio caller is enhanced by the distance they are from the team they are criticizing.  Often, we see a bad movie or television show, and either walk out in disgust or change ...

There is yet another potential lottery jackpot available tonight. One of those "balls" lotteries is set to go off.  Powerball, Lottoball ... something like that.  I don't play enough to truly understand the thing. When the jackpot gets over $200 million, a bunch of us at work put-in two dollars each and buy a bunch of tickets.  As you can no doubt tell, we have never won. Otherwise, I'd be writing this from Sedona, Arizona shitfaced on Mai Tai's and ordering prostitutes on the Craigslist. For some reason, the work group only collects when the jackpot gets to a certain level - as though winning $50 million isn't as big a deal as winning $200 million.  It's not the 50 or 200 as much as it is the "million" part that appeals to me. I'm not a greedy person.  I could do very well with $20,000 and say "thank you."  After all, $200 million is a controversial amount of money.  When the Phillies paid Ryan Howard $200 million,...

Model Karlie Kloss (left) set off some controversy when she walked the runway wearing a Native American headdress (also called a war bonnet), a culturally insensitive faux pas that led the company to pull the footage of the offending outfit from its planned Dec. 4 broadcast . Several Native American groups called the lingerie company out for the blunder. Native Appropriations , a blog covering imagery of indigenous cultures, accused the retailer of "egregious cultural appropriation, stereotyping, and marginalizing of Native peoples." Ruth Hopkins, a columnist for a Native American news site , wrote that "after years of patronage and loyalty to the Victoria's Secret brand, I am repaid with the mean-spirited, disrespectful trivialization of my blood ancestry and the proud Native identity I work hard to instill in my children." Putting a headdress on a white model is particularly offensive, she wrote, because among the Sioux tribe, war bonnets are exclusi...

To the HOTTIE in wawa today around 845am i think you saw me checking you out if you happen to see this and you are single id love to buy you a beer! You were wearing a pair of ear phones tell me what else you were wearing so i know you are the person this post is intended for! If you haven't done it , by all means go to Craigslist and sit for a few hours and read the personal ads.  Like watching "Hoarders," it will immediately make you feel better about your life and simultaneously cause you to wonder about the state of modern life in America.  I have it bookmarked.   You caught my eye as I was ordering my Latte at the counter. You were having a conversation with the woman making your sandwich. Then you dropped your bag after checking out--I watched you leave and we caught each looking.. And smiled! I would love to know your name!   The thing that it points out to me is the severe lack of communication in a society that seems to value communication to ...

So, here it is Sunday night, two days before election day.  Here in New Jersey, we have several big contests to decide.  We will be electing a county clerk, surrogate and a sheriff.  Not a sheriff like Andy Taylor or Buford T. Justice.  A sheriff like one who rides around in a county vehicle handing out summons' and ... I don't know ... locking up stray dogs or something.  I really don't know what a sheriff does, besides collect a big New Jersey State Pension when he retires, or isn't elected to whatever his term is.  Clueless.   Oh, and yes, there's that presidential election.  Among the candidates are a Socialism and Liberation party candidate, one from the American Third Position (I thought there were more positions than three) a Constitution Party candidate, and a few others who stand to clog up the ballot to the point that their family and friends will vote for them and you will not see their vote totals posted in your local newspaper....

"I am pretty good at tennis, but I will never be as good as the wall. The wall is relentless." -   Mitch Hedberg There are a lot of things that are relentless:  The Internal Revenue Service, bills, a cat demanding food and the weather.  The weather is relentless.  When you want it to stop, it keeps coming and when you want it to continue, it stops.  Seasons change and the pace changes.   One of the things we are reminded of when the pace changes is how quickly it can change and how powerless we are to stop it from changing. It is relentless.   Last weekend we were attacked from above by a weather phenomenon that has been given the name Hurricane Sandy.  We like to name things and blame things. It's in our nature.  We can't accept that "stuff happens," we need to find out whom to blame and what it is called. It's a "Storm of the Century," "Drought of the Decade" or some such moniker that identifies it until the next mi...

My peculiar situation is that I get my Internet service from a satellite whose signal winds it way through Charlotte, North Carolina.  On most days, that isn't a problem.  However, with Hurricane Sandy (a boyishly lame name for a storm) bearing down on us, that signal has been silenced.  As a first resort, I am sitting in the Gloucester County Library with my work laptop getting caught up on my month-end bills, e-mails and miscellaneous web crawling that somehow seems necessary. I went to college as an adult, graduating in 2006.  It was necessary for me to leave the house in order to get anything serious accomplished.  Pending household chores, a whining cat, the blare of the TV and other home-bound distractions were left behind and my mind could focus on the task at hand.  Usually, it was a paper I had to write or some mathematically challenging homework. To write my papers, I used antiquated devices known as a pen and paper.  I would feve...

There seems to be no end of ways to separate us from the things we need to do. Priorities have shifted in life, and I don't think for the better. I see people walking with their heads down, typing away on a handheld device, oblivious to their surroundings.  They have the nerve to look shocked when they realize that they are face-to-face with someone walking in the other direction.  I will not alter my gait to suit them. I'm not sure about other states, but in New Jersey, drivers are required to turn on their headlights when it is raining.  It's one of those visibility things.  Our inspection stickers used to have a message on the back that said "WIPERS ON, LIGHTS ON."  I think the subtlety was lost on most drivers, as I still see at least one in five cars driving around without their headlights on. That poetic, yet stern warning was replaced recently.  With the advent of cellular communications (I will not call them cell phones, because a...

Not since William Howard Taft has there been a fatter presidential candidate than our own Chris Christie - a strange combination of names  - who was slated to say something in front of a bunch of assembled Republicans in Florida tonight. I don't care to listen because I am a resident of the state in which he is the governor, so I could probably write the speech.  I don't need to tune into CNN to listen to it.   He'll tell the world (or the American part of it) how the budget should be balanced and how badly we've done since the scourge of the Democrats have descended on America.  It's that predictable.  Politics has relegated itself to denigrating the other party and telling you how bad your life is because the other party is in charge.   That's how it has been since the beginning of politics.  But, for your lifetime, let's review:  Jimmy Carter promised to bring back honesty to the office after the Nixon/Ford nonsense.  Ronald ...

OK, so it's Olympics time. I'm fascinated by the Olympics. Partly because I like the "thrill of victory" crap, and partly because I enjoy watching sports that I won't watch again for another four years. That's the fascinating part about the Olympics - the four-year time span.  If there wasn't another movie sequel for four years, you'd say, "Gee, whatever happened to that Spiderman thing?"  But sports like archery and volleyball go four years without any updates and you glom on like it was yesterday the last time you saw them. Does anybody give a crap about gymnastics or swimming except on four-year cycles? No, and that's why the Olympics are fascinating to me.  Michael Phelps will win a dozen or so medals, his gross income will increase by millions of dollars and the last time we saw him seriously pursuing his sport was 2008.  That's a long time for society to maintain interest in something.  We lose track of television sho...

I have a Chic-Fil-A near my home, but I've never been there.  I hear they are customer-friendly and it's sort of like a cult of chicken eaters that go into them.  You're greeted and treated like you are something special, even though what you really want is a fried chicken sandwich. Lately, their CEO has come out against gay marriage (and other gay things) and the backlash has been measurable.  So much so, that there have been Twitter and (I hear) Facebook posts decrying the company and its stance against the gay thing. Is this what we want?   Do you want to base your life on what the people in charge of companies think of your lifestyle choices? If so, then maybe you should go about interviewing the CEO of every company that you do business with and how each of them deals with every lifestyle choice that comes across their desk. I'd guess that you would wind up farming your own food, flushing your own toilet into your own backyard cesspool, manufacturin...

A nice horizontal lightning strike from my back porch tonight.

  "And I'll say it again, I need a brand new friend." Jim Morrison Hyacinth House For about the tenth time in the past three years, I have abandoned Facebook.  Mostly because it has abandoned me.   Oh Facebook, why hast thou forsaken me? I know why.   It's because Facebook is a happy place.  It's a place where people can say, "Hey, Look at me! See what I'm doing!"  And mostly, I'm doing it without you.  That's where the forsaken part comes in. We have real friends (or most of you do) and we have our Facebook Friends.  Facebook friends are mostly acquaintances that we otherwise wouldn't associate with if it weren't for the Internet and its so-called social interaction skills.  Part of those social interaction skills are supposed to bring together people with like interests.  What it really does is bring us together with people with whom we have one thing in common, and Facebook software links us up with others who ...

These things usually aren't about me.   They are rants about what is going on in the world or what nonsense has affected my life that reflects on what is going on in the world. However, the recent events in Colorado and some ancillary events have convinced me that we can't change the world one person at a time.  We can't even change it a thousand people at a time.  The world is a big place, and changing it has lost its purpose.  We won't change it. We won't keep people from talking on cell phones while they are driving. We won't keep people from buying assualt weapons.  We won't keep people from throwing trash out of their car windows. [Sidebar:  I saw a Prius driver throw a cigarette out of his window. If a Prius driver doesn't get the "World-as-One" concept, what hope do we have?] We won't keep people from parking in the fire lane at the Shop Rite.  We won't keep people from singing-along at concerts.  We won't ke...