Duck Diving in a Sea of Change

Hi again from the moving process!  Due to some time constraints this evening I'm going to keep this post short and sweet, I swear (stop rolling your eyes Ben, we can all hear you!).

During this whole process of finding a job and having to rapidly relocate my life 120 miles eastward, it's become painfully evident to me how people are just not wired all that well to deal with sudden change.  I've moved on very short notice more times than I want to count in my life, but that's what you get when you're a career retail management monkey.  You just get used to it, much in the same way that military families do.  It never gets to be fun, believe me, but you get used to it just the same.

Where I'm quite honestly a bit flabbergasted is how I see those around me going through minor changes in their life and blowing them completely out of proportion.  My wife and I are overhauling everything in the course of two weeks and yet we seem to have been able to keep it mostly together and accomplish what needs to be done even though we're two hours apart.  On the flip side of that coin I see other people in screaming matches when a babysitter cancels and the husband needs to pick the kid up for a change.  

I just don't get it.

Change is a constant part of our human existence.  It's as immovable and unyielding as stone and will pound your just as flat as an ocean wave if you try to stand against it.  It basically comes down to a choice: you can man/woman up and accept what life has thrown at you or you can throw a fit like a child and whine about it.  That's where the whole duck diving part comes in.  If you've ever tried surfing, even once, someone tried to teach you how to duck dive to help you navigate the oncoming waves.  The same concept works with change in your life.  Sometimes you just have to bear down, push through it, and get on to the better things that await you.

So, to those of you that need to hear it, BUCK THE HELL UP LITTLE CAMPER!

Enjoy your week, more to come once I find somewhere to put all these boxes!

We've Moved!!

Well kids your buddy the CS has done the unthinkable...

I GOT A JOB!

The great thing is that I'm back working with a former employer and the job is awesome.  The only downside, and it's just barely a downside at that, is that I have to abandon good ol' Raleighwood and move to Morehead City. 

I haven't been able to post during the last week or so during the transition but, now that we are in the short rows I should be back on a normal publication schedule.

Talk to you all soon!

Thanks For Rattling My Cage

Good morning all.  Before I ramp up the howitzers here, I need to catch you up on a little behind the scenes goings on...

After yesterday's post about religious effluvia on social media, I received a rather profane email from an apparently highly upset Scientologist who demanded to know why I seem to take exception to their faith as being nonsensical and make it the butt of jokes when I'll take any other faith seriously.  Ignoring the fact that they obviously didn't read but maybe the last third of the post, I moved forward and replied very politely that I'm sorry if they took offense but that maybe this was an opportunity for them to explain their faith to me and essentially solve my major issue, i.e. that it just doesn't make sense to me as I understand it.  I essentially begged them for a response and even offered to post what they sent me in the spirit of fairness.

Well, I got a response.

And it was golden.

True to my word, I'm going to re-post exactly what I was sent to me this morning.

"The tenets of our beliefs are for the members of our faith alone.  Fuck you."

Really...

As you can imagine it took me a few minutes to dry my eyes as I wept from uncontrollable laughter.  That response was truly a classic, I have to give it to this individual.  Truly classic.

As I understand it, distant millennia ago, the spirits of evil alien beings were condemned to our planet.  These evil spirits inhabit all of us and cause us to do evil.  The only way we can be free of these influences is to take part in audit training and purification of our lives.  All those who oppose the church are infested with evil and are bad influences.

It took me about five minutes to find that online.  Exactly what I already knew about the faith and NOW, MORE THAN EVER, IT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE WHATSOEVER.

Maybe I'm not supposed to get it.  Maybe I'm too filled with evil alien ghosts.  Maybe I forgot to give all my money to the church so good ol' Maverick can fight off the evil aliens for me.  Maybe I forgot to wear a hat made out of macaroni and tin foil while marching around downtown Raleigh naked with a broomstick up my ass and attempting to use my own penis as a slide whistle on which to play the opening stanza of Amazing Grace.

All I can say is Holy Operating Thetan, Batman! There are robes aren't there?  Somewhere in all this giggleshit you oppressive buttplugs try to pass off as a faith there are ominous colored robes that you have to wear over a rubber diaper.  Come on, be honest.  Do the electrodes hurt?  I'm only asking because the only thing I can think of that can cause such hardcore rampant stupidity is good old fashioned electro-shock therapy.

Once again let me state that I firmly support everyone's right to practice whatever faith they will.  I personally don't care what goes on in the circles of Scientology any more than I do at the Satanic National Convention.  My only problem with this apparent circle jerk of clown shoe wisdom is their inability to behave sociably when asked a direct question.  This lady isn't the first Scientologist I've had this kind of horrifically negative social interaction with.  In fact, the ONLY person who practices this faith I've ever had an even remotely intelligent discussion with on the subject was a young lady I was practicing advanced immodest body positioning with and even then she was only telling me to try to convert me.  I'd just love to understand the secrecy.  Why will you only talk about this with others who've had the store brand Kool Aid?  Hmmm....

Well, I guess I better get ready for the panel van full of guys with blue shirts to show up and tell me to cease and desist before things get ugly and they rape my dog or some such nonsense.  Good luck with that by the way... Jake can be a little squirmy.

Oh yeah, and while we're being all mature here:  nah screw it.  This numbnut isn't even worth the effort required for a creative insult.  Just shut up and go away.

Okay, Okay, We Get It Already!!

I'm going to preface today's remarks with a warning ladies and gentlemen:  if you are prone to be easily offended regarding religious matters, if someone poking a bit of derisive fun at the utter holiness of your faith upsets you, or if you have a tendency to get all butt hurt when someone points out a little random hypocrisy that you may be actively taking part in YOU MAY NOT WANT TO READ THIS POST.  

It may cause cramping, possibly hemorrhagic staining, and quite likely some spotting.

I don't know what has happened to Facebook lately, maybe it's the folks that comprise my friends list, but when the hell did Facebook become so overly addled with Christian memes that  the only way I can actually read what someone has to say about anything I find important is to filter through 750,000 pictures of pretty pastoral scenes with scrawling inscriptions in near illegibly flowery script praising the joyous creation of our Christian lord.

Oh our dear sweet and fluffy lords (yes plural for those pagans out there, don't worry, I got you) people! Did we someone misstep and allow the Southern Baptist Convention to take over Facebook and someone forgot to post the newsletter?!

Look, those of you who have read my blog regularly know I'm a fervent supporter of everyone's right to practice whichever religion you wish and respect all of them (with the exception of Scientology because I just can't figure it out) equally.  I just don't understand the rampant and unrelenting and completely uncalled-for proselytizing that goes on in social media.  I'm cool with your love of Jesus but do you not realize that someone out there that doesn't share your faith could think your gardener has gone missing and you're sad 'cause homey did some excellent work?

You know, in the name of equality and instead of getting ill about it, how about I proceed this way instead.  Effective immediately, I want to encourage everyone to broadcast your faith over social media as if your involuntary bodily functions were suddenly taken over by the spirit of Jerry Falwell.  It's about time the Buddhists, Wiccans, Pagans, Asatrurs, and hell even the Methodists start meme-ing like madman as well.

So in that light, Happy Tyr's Day and Blessed Be, Y'all!

(And yes, I so posted that on Facebook...)

Enjoy your afternoon boys and girls, and for Buddha's sake stop hitting your sister with your prayer beads or I swear I'm calling one of L. Ron's minions over here to audit your little ass. Now someone thank the baby Jesus and Mohammad for the grub so we can eat already!!

Yeah But I'm Right Dammit!

Happy Monday kids.

Believe it or not this post is completely suitable for work. I did it. Who knew.

Today's post is going to be short and sweet.  I want to share a few thoughts with you all on opinions.  Now before anyone automatically gets their undergarments in a wad, let's start this whole topic off the right way by acknowledging that every single one of us in this country, under what's left of our Constitution, is guaranteed the right to free speech so long as it does not endanger others and intrinsic within that right is your right to an opinion on any and every thing out there.  Yours is just as valid as mine is.

See, that wasn't so bad, was it?  Let's continue.

What I'm more concerned with today is the way in which opinions seem to be brandished about with the intellectual and social effectiveness of a 22 year old 10th grade bully. It seems to be more and more in fashion as of late to use your personal opinion to abuse, deride, lambaste, and just generally trod upon others.  

But Brian, you say with aplomb, there are literally scores of people you've used your blog to rip new orifi into over the past year and change.  Aren't you doing exactly what you're saying you're sick of?  Well, yes and no.  While I do on occasion use my blog as a literary pear of anguish (google the term if you're not familiar - I'm trying to stay in the suitable for work category today) on occasion to those I deem particularly worthy, I do so with two caveats in place.  First, I have no problem whatsoever defending any words I type and publish in person and face to face. No Facebook / blog / anonymous keyboard badassery here folks.  Second, and most importantly, I am willing to admit when I'm wrong and have on at least two occasions published retractions / changes to my opinions on issues or people.

You see, in a lot of ways I'm encouraged by the fact that, basically beginning with last year's Presidential debates, the people of this great land are actually getting engaged in their society again and developing real opinions instead of asking their spouse where all the remote batteries went and what that buzzing noise is that's coming from the bedroom while they power eat Twinkies in front of the Playstation.  The problem comes in that while these opinions are developed there is seemingly little thought to their formative process.  In effect, our great citizenry is running around brandishing the intellectual equivalent of a knee jerk reaction to a headline on the Bloomberg ticker or some offhanded sound byte and using it as a cudgel to wreak havoc on  those who take the slightest issue or espouse a differing view.

Look, I'm all about Civil Discourse as a concept. As I've said before I still find it amazing that a group of 300 lb iron junkies can stand around a gym floor and calmly discuss politics, gun control, religions, or whatever happens to come up while four people in street clothes can't decide what restaurant to go to without fisticuffs ensuing.  Maybe it's just that large folk don't want to waste the energy on trying to preach to someone else, or maybe it's that in some groups it's just accepted there will be differences in opinion and in the overall that's just okay.  

What irritates me is when someone is unwilling to first educate themselves on a topic before developing a near-sacred opinion and opening their mouth and then secondly refuses to let anyone else feel differently because "they're just wrong."  But then again the Christian church has used that very logic throughout history as proof of cause for exactly how many wars?

Kids, opinions are great things and we are all chock full of them.  Express yours as often as you can please, but just take a second / minute / couple of days / whatever is necessary to make sure yours isn't making you look like the uneducated and easily manipulated jackass you swear up and down that you aren't.  Just sayin', as always.

The Netflix Algorithm Shames Me So

I hope everyone has had a safe and eventful (in a good way) New Year's experience.  It's now 2013 and as of 12:30 p.m. on this rainy, cool, and somewhat miserable outside day I have already been annoyed to the nth degree.  Ain't life grand?

I'd like to pose my response to this latest annoyance in the form of an open letter to the offender.  Feel free to play along if you're one of the six people that bought the home game.  The rest of you can just read and enjoy!

Dear Netflix,

Hello. I am a long term subscriber to your service. I'm having a bit of difficulty and instead of calling a customer service number and trying to explain myself to Habib/Bob from the company you outsourced that darling little task to on the other side of the rock, I thought I'd just air my angst in writing and get it all out in the open.  

Your technology contains an algorithm that suggests additional titles for a user based upon their individual viewing history.  After extensive use and experience with your service, I'd like to make a very simple suggestion that you take a few moments and reprogram whatever version of HAL crossbred with GLADOS from Portal that you have running things over there to stop making suggestions based upon ONE FRAKKIN' VIEWING and at the very least PAY SOME GODDAMN ATTENTION TO WHAT PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY WATCHING!

Obviously, no intelligent argument for change can be made without pertinent examples.  Allow me to provide the following as cases in point:

1)  I am a large, heterosexual man.  Just because I choose to watch Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy does not mean that I suddenly need a suggestion bar full of Gay and Lesbian themed movies.  Just because I watch a movie where Ben Affleck erroneously kisses Jason Lee does not mean that I wish to fill my days watching title after title of Macaulay Culkin's attempts at a lifestyle statement of a career after he finished puberty / playing at MJ's house.  Thanks, but it's just not my thing.

2)  Similarly, I am also not a lesbian even though I auditioned for the role on several occasions.  Maybe it was the beard or the lack of flannel clothing, I'm not sure, but I never made it into the club.  While I have to admit that The L Word was a pretty good show at the outset, I don't really have an interest in some Scottish show about an angsty lesbian photographer that somehow crept into my TV suggestions.  Hey look, I'm all up for a bit of ye olde clam wrestling in my filmed entertainment like everyone else but should one movie choice really make you think I need outed in such fine style?

3)  If I choose to watch one WWE special event after a few beers, I do not need to instantly know about all 542 documentaries on The Rock's pernicious hairstyle choices over the years.  Dude can do the eyebrow thing.  I get it.  So can Leonard Nimoy.  Move along, don't flood my screen with it.

4)  I like the Transformers movies and anything Marvel can churn out.  I'm a big kid, I get it.  However, just because I enjoy some Michael Bay robot smack down and some good ol' fashioned Hulk-Smash-Everything-Because-He's-Awesome DOES NOT MEAN I NEED A SUGGESTION LINE FULL OF WHATEVER CLAPTRAP NICKELODEON IS SPEWING OUT THIS WEEK!  For God's holy sake people!  Are you serious? Other than being second in line behind Obama for nominations in the Anti-Christ runoff, SpongeBob Squarepants need not exist in my universe.  Just, damn!

5)  Along similar lines, please stop trying to foist some Chinese/Korean knockoff versions of currently/recently released titles thinking I'll be simpleminded enough to not know the difference.  Transformers? Awesome.  Transmorphers? As my five year old niece says:  REAAAALY?

6)  Also in the same vein, you have a kid-specific version of Netflix available.  Why is it that if I watch a couple of DC animated movies that, by the way, are violent as hell, I get inundated with suggestions for Powder Puff Girls and for shit's sake The Power Rangers Movie?

7)  I am not a high functioning retarded kid, regardless of what my wife may tell you on occasion.  I watched one stupid MTV reality episode three years ago and the digitized version of a chronically masturbating Reese's monkey that runs this program is still convinced that I give such a flaming damn about Snooki and company that it keeps popping up on my goddamn suggestions!  

8)  I am not a huge fan of anime.  I watched one or two years ago and haven't gone back since. Why in the world would I care to have a cue line full of doe eyed kids in sailor outfits fighting with samurai swords then suddenly raving about world peace while gang raping the newest Pokemon of the week?  I mean come the hell on.

9)  And lastly, please do not hand me the line about rating more titles will help make the suggestion process better and better for me.  I checked.  I have rated over 2,000 titles along the way.  I think all it's done is confuse that damned aforementioned monkey.

In short Netflix, please do something about your suggestion system.  As it stands now something in your computer system seems to believe I am a gay man who is considering lesbianism (and most likely a pre-op if logic follows) and has a fixation on wrestling documentaries, korean knock off movies, twisted ass anime, and reality television.  This is the kind of thing that can lead to surveillance teams outside your house.  Believe me, I watch enough Homeland to know what can happen.  But wait, how would you know I watch Homeland...  like most of the really good stuff on cable TV, IT'S NOT ON YOUR FRIGGIN' SERVICE YET!!!

Yours,

A Flabbergasted Customer