Tag Archives: history

LJ – Shrublet In Hell

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From 3/17/2003

Here we all sit, on the brink of war… and all I can think of is “We are a Nation of Peace” as a flying image, colliding with the notion that we are essentially going to flood the Euphrates and Tigris rivers with blood. We’re going to most likely bomb Iraq into the stone age – so much for being a nation of peace. I see Dubya’s new anti-war stance not as some honorable position but rather it’s the “Get the Hell out of Dodge” policy, that it’s just about Dubya and Saddam. Why don’t they simply just sit down like civilized people and try to bludgeon each other to death with their own hands? I’d go so far as to say that this may very well be Generation Y’s Vietnam. Our proud soldiers go off to fight some foreign battle and what of them when they come back? How many Vietnam Vets came back to a chilly America? How many “Rumble in the Sandbox” troops will come home facing a public that doesn’t believe in them because they fought a war against one single man and an idea? Where is good old fashioned 20th century thinking? Ah yes, right here in the enlightened 21st Century. I suppose it’s better to bomb Iraq into the stone age and create thousands more little Saddams than it would be in pursuing a more peaceful and more lucrative solution, say, flooding the middle east with American goodwill. Hah, fat chance of that happening now. The best way to battle terror is to blindly lash out, that way you can create destroy it with a war.

I sit back and think upon loftier thoughts because all of this depresses me, and I find my mind wandering towards what Jesus Christ said, that the solution was to not kill, but rather to forgive and to love. I find it quite engaging to hear Dubya invoke a God he is currently plotting on rendering moot. What footing does any good Christian have if they in good conscience allow this war to proceed, knowing that they have turned away from the teachings of their God because of laziness? It’s far easier to bomb and kill and murder than it is to forgive. I can just imagine the knot in the pit of the Pope’s stomach when the first bomb falls on the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

In brighter news, the Yahoo! main page is a cavalcade of good news items:

  • Bush Says Saddam Has 48 Hours to Leave or It’s War
  • U.S. Raises Terror Alert Level Due to Iraq Crisis
  • U.S. Sees Signs Iraq May Use Chemical, Bio Arms
  • Turkey to Debate Helping U.S. on Tuesday
  • Annan Orders UN Staff Out of Iraq
  • Deadly Pneumonia Defies Global Health Experts
  • Charges Delayed in Elizabeth Smart Case

The part that particularly drew my attention was this one: * Deadly Pneumonia Defies Global Health Experts. I wonder if this is the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?

LJ – The Great North American Piece of Crap

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From 3/8/2007

If I didn’t need to reiterate the lesson I’ve learned, I’ve just got a $1206.67 lesson just down the pipes. My POS American Car just ate it’s bearings and it’s 4th set of brakes. This piece of shit, built in Lansing, by General Motors is one giant proof-of-concept that American products are for the most part composed of bullshit bolted to sheet-steel and delivered by the slimiest most repugnant humans I know of, Auto Salesmen. Whats worse is that the repugnancy just gets smarmier when you go in for repair. I almost heard the repair reps talons clicking when she told me “Oh yes, you’ll need a boatload of repairs, tee-hee!”

New bearings at 60k, brakes at 15, 30, 45, and 60k… of course the joy to this all is GM claims that “Brakes are wear items and as such are not covered by any warranty”

Buying an American Car is like buying a giant money pit with which one shovels vast amounts of cash into the nethers of giant looming useless companies like Ford, GM, and whatever the third one is.

I’ve learned my lesson. Even if I wanted an American Car, I shall not buy one. Never ever again. The Saturn Aura looked appealing, but it’s GM, and therefore just another shiny turd.

From now on I shall only own a Japanese car, they are far better and I hail the day when GM and Ford, and whatever the third one is goes out of business for good. They deserve nothing more than to go hungry for manufacturing the abominations they sell to unsuspecting people. Is it any surprise why the Japanese and Korean companies are selling hand-over-fist, it’s because the American companies just put out “good enough to sell” while the Japanese put out quality.

This of course is for the most part rhetorical as most people know that American cars are rolling deathtraps built to the standards of play-doh and silly-putty.

I bitch and complain, but after all, I should pay, and pay dearly, for my mistake of owning an American piece of trash.

LJ – Nostalgia

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From 11/10/2003

Nostalgia… the reverie of something poignant in the past. It also brings forth the notion that scent plays a role in it, with the Nos prefix to the word itself.

In my wandering tonight I decided to go out after I got all my little tasks done and over with and went to Best Buy. I noticed several wonderful and frightfully affordable toys lined on shelves bleating out ‘Buy me! Buy me!’ however I luckily survived and resisted the urge to break out my Best Buy card and spend like the dickens… While browsing I decided to pick up a new spindle of CD-R’s for work using the purchasing card so it was a chance to window shop and take care of a little business all in one giant go. After Yub tseB was over with I next had my eye on some more laundry detergent and across the road was a Target… got that done and over with and I went searching for lubricant for my car’s passenger side front door assembly because it squeaks and wonks. Standing in Target I searched for about 10 minutes until I finally found a canister of WD-40, for which I didn’t buy. I left with my laundry soap and while driving down Westnedge Avenue it occurred to me that I could probably find what I was looking for at Meijers. Stop there, wander the automotive section for a while and behold… the same canister size of WD-40 laying on the shelf… I don’t know if it was my irritation at the plastic’ness of Target or just a brain fart, but I completely forgot that WD-40 is a lubricant and is exactly what I was looking for. After getting it at Meijers I promptly headed home only to find myself driving right behind Scott coming home from his book readers club at B&N. Followed him home, parked the car, and got ready to take care of the laundry. Stocked the car, headed back into the house to fetch a flashlight and with the canister of WD-40 in tow I set out to resolve the squeak/wonk sound.

That’s where Nostalgia comes in…

As I started to spray the WD-40 all over the hinge assembly and move the door back and forth I got a whiff of the scent inherent in WD-40. I found myself a party to a very vivid memory which defines a good portion of the male influence in my life. The first image I remember is my maternal grandfathers workbench – he repaired typewriters and WD-40 was the cure-all for damn near everything that could ail an old purely mechanical typewriter back in the 80’s. I remembered bits and pieces of him, nothing intense, but startling in that I wasn’t expecting such a profound memory to pop out and say “hiya!”. The other memory was helping my father work on an old electro-mechanical cash register back in his old office in Syracuse. It had this huge hood assembly that you’d put the part in and it had these big metal rods with little triggers on them and you could pressure-wash with WD-40 until the part worked or drowned in lubrication. For both of these memories the abject shock of recognition and the speed at which my mind churned up these particular childhood memories left me in a lurch for a while – savoring the light scent of WD-40 and appreciating just how strong Nostalgia can grip you when you least expect it.

LJ – Math Dream

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From 9/16/1999

Mathematics. I had dreamed that I was in a high level mathematics class and that I had aced the test except for the very last questions which I could not answer for the life of me because I had no clue what the subject matter was it was that complicated. The odd flow of the dream was that the professor had put the solutions up on the blackboard just as he expected to see from us however after seeing these I still could not solve the problems. After a while I found that the solutions were washing away of their own accord and near the end I left the last question half-finished. When I looked beneath my desk I found most of the blankets that I had used to cover myself the night before hanging beneath me. When I went to collect them a big clear plastic bag appeared and I put all my blankets in the clear plastic bag. For some reason this wasn’t a surprise to anyone and I had planned on going home anyways. The dream fell apart when I began to involuntarily drift out of the dream and wake up.

LJ – The Taxman Cometh

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From 02/12/2003

Just polished off my taxes, Scott’s and Dan’s. Turns out I’ll be making quite the killing refund wise so I have decided to invest my money in three ways. One way is to completely disentangle myself from worrying over the fundage for our groups Gencon trip, second, to ferret cash away somewhere safe for an eventual trip to Wales (& Ireland, maybe), and the third bit I am not sure on just yet. A part of me wants to toss it at my credit debts, another part wants to have it broken into 5’s and 10’s and roll around in it like a horse with a bad back itch.

While putting some mileage on my Guncon2 controller for the PS/2 with my friend Dan from work we did taxes and chatted and I wondered why the feds don’t establish a monetary return (interest after all) on the withholding that I’ve been involuntarily paying via my employer, that would add a bit of flavoring to my 1040A for sure and be more fair to everyone.

Another thing I discovered tonight is that even though there are slight differences in withholding and such, I really got a taste for the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer while doing everyones taxes – the divide between Scott, Dan, and My income tax returns shows me how unbalanced income tax is and it angers me how it is affecting my friends.