I am that madman.

I’m working my last week for Northrop Grumman as a CDC Contractor this week.  I’m not unhappy at CDC, in fact, it was a very tough decision to leave.  So why am I doing it?

There are occasions in a person’s life when that person has an opportunity to “leap forward”.  When Internet Security Systems hired me away from AirTouch 13 years ago, I went from a “safe, corporate job” to a company that had just gone public and was growing by leaps and bounds.  It was one of the happiest and most rewarding experiences in my career despite the fact that it ended a bit worse than I had intended.

10 years later, with lessons learned, I have such an opportunity again, a chance to expand my skills and professional horizons that doesn’t occur in larger companies.

Something that goes along with such a change, I am re-evaluating a lot of the things in my life.  I’m deciding what is important and what can be left behind.  There is something healing about leaving behind some of the baggage that you carry around in your soul, and not all of the jettisoned “cargo” is bad.  Sometimes you have to give up/leave behind some things that have run their course, even though you enjoyed them.  You have to unpack your bags from time to time to make room for new stuff.

I’m looking forward to discovering what new “stuff” is out there for me.

Now there are times when sacrificing your own life may be the best option… Protecting your family, or an idea that is bigger than yourself.  But killing yourself because of depression is a failure.  A failure to seek help. A failure to reach out to the people who love you.  A failure of faith.  Faith in God.  Faith in yourself.  Faith in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.  Whatever it is that you might have faith in.  Carrying on even when you don’t have a reason to do so is the ultimate test of a human being.

I haven’t spoken to this person in nearly a decade, and we weren’t particularly close even then.  But hearing the news today shocked me just the same.  I grieve.  Not as much for him, but for his family.  For the friends and loved ones he left behind.  I grieve for all those people who are left behind asking “Why?”  We look for reasons because the truth that is staring us in the face is too unpleasant to face.  He failed.  At some basic level of his existence, he could not handle what it means to live and took the selfish and easy way out.

I don’t say this out of malice.  I think it sucks.  I think that he forgot that there are people who could have reminded him that he is loved and that there are people in the world who care.  Hell, *I* care.  I wish I had the opportunity to remind him that there are people who love him and want to help him.  I think it is that love that will reach into the depths of hell and pull even the most wretched soul out of the abyss.

Some of you may think that “failure” is too harsh a word to use, or at the very least think it is an indelicate choice of word.  Stop fearing failure!  Failure teaches us.  Failure makes success that much sweeter.  We all fail.  We are all imperfect. Failure reminds us that we have more work to do.  If nothing else, his failure is a reminder to the rest of us that we are not alone.  Remind yourselves that you are loved.  Remind others that you love them.

And to anyone who might read these words…

If you reach the point in your life where you think suicide is an option.  If you feel that there is nobody on this Earth who gives a damn that you’re alive.  Look me up.  I care.  Consider it a blank check to humanity, but if there is nobody else on this planet who you think can talk you down from that ledge.  I’ll do my best.  I’m not a psychologist or a pshrink, and my ordination as a minister is barely worth the paper it is printed on, but I’ll do my best to remind you that there is ALWAYS a reason to carry on even if it is just contempt for the things in this world that are beating you down.

Short Version:

• Wife and kids are great. (Yes, I said kids… #2 is on the way!)
• My mother is a psychopath who has proven most of my father’s last words absolutely freaking accurate.  Thankfully, my in-laws and step-mother do a wonderful job of taking up the slack.
• Health is as good as it has been in years.  I’m back in the gym and enjoying the hell out of it.
• Jobs are going great. (technically… 3 of them.  I keep busy)
• Even raiding in World of Warcraft is… going great. =)
• Life is pretty much peachy f’ing keen.

So why am I resurrecting a blog that is home to most of my rantings and ravings?  Because I need some place to say all of the stuff that scandalizes “decent folks”.  Things like…

• It’s not Sarah Palin’s fault that some whackjob in Arizona shot up all those people, no matter how much I think Sarah Palin is a malignant force in this country who should shut the hell up.
• Obama is a typical politician, and while I think he’s doing a fair job, he is in trouble next year if the GOP runs the right candidate. (Yes, I have an opinion on who that candidate is… Ron Paul.)
• Congress is, top-to-bottom, the largest collection of scum and villainy seen since the Mos Eisley cantina.
• The TSA is staffed by a bunch of mouth-breathing morons who give government employees a bad name.
• If nobody else will say it.  I will.   You want to balance the budget?  Take a good hard look at Defense spending.  I could cut the military’s budget in half without sacrificing the safety, effectiveness, or quantity of troops one iota.  If I can do it, those assholes in Congress should be able to figure it out.
• I hope the NBA and NFL have labor stoppages… and stay that way for at least 2 years, then people might realize that not only are sports not life-or-death, but there is a lot out there to watch that isn’t mass produced mediocrity.  I wish sports in this country would adopt the promotion/relegation model so that cheap-ass owners who don’t spend money to put a good team on the field don’t get to split revenue with the teams that go out and work for it by signing the best players and putting the best team on the field.
• Ricky Gervais is a freakin’ genius and I was thrilled to see him skewer all those celebrities on yet another bullshit Hollywood Awards show.  Can he host all of them?  I might actually watch.

More to come.. I’m out.

-Grim

The Economy

It’s funny how things don’t seem so bad when you turn off the TV and stop listening to yammering talking heads screaming about how bad things are.  Sure, we’re being a little more cost conscious than we were a couple of years ago but on the other hand, I have a two year old.  Kids cost money.   We have no significant debt aside from our mortgage, and the value of our investments and savings is climbing slowly but surely.  Would I like a return to the dot-com-boom days of the late 90′s?  You betcha.  However, I don’t think the world is going to end anytime soon.  Stop listening to all of the “experts” who get paid to spit shine their opinions and foist them on a relatively uneducated public.  If you’re in debt up to your eyeballs, then whose fault is it?   I have no love for credit card companies and other money lenders who prey on folks who could use a few extra bucks each month, truly I don’t.  However, at some point you have to look at the huge sheaf of paper that they’re asking you to sign and say “Wait a minute, how hard is it to say ‘If you loan me X, I’ll pay Y back to you over Z months’?”

Pretty hardcore ranting, eh?

Stick around, that was just the warm up course.

Politics

Where, oh where do I begin?  I have claimed before that “We The People” are too freaking stupid to survive as a republic.  It has gotten worse.  I can appreciate the high-minded sentiment from the Teabaggers that “We just want government to leave us alone”.  Yeah, I get that.  Believe me, I do.

So why the FUCK are these same people protesting that “The Gub’mint” is “allowing” a “Mosque” to be built two blocks away from the “Hallowed Ground” of “Ground Zero”? (A lot of scare quotes to be sure, but have you read their arguments on this issue?)  If it isn’t the government’s business to decide how many guns you can own or how you practice your religion, then how is it even remotely their business to tell someone where they can build a community center? (Not a Mosque, you illiterate fucktards…)

And Sarah F. Palin… Yes, I know her maiden name is Heath, and her given middle name is Louise… The F stands for something else.  Rub those two braincells of yours together and see if you can figure out what it is.  This dumb bitch is Dan Quayle with better legs.  No, strike that, even Dan Quayle served out his elected term.  Sarah Palin is the walking embodiment of everything that is wrong with the modern Republican Party.  Hell, I used to be somewhat of a fan of Newt Gingrich until he started toeing the line that this crazy bitch drew in the sand.  Otherwise intelligent Republicans are so afraid of alienating the lunatic fringe of the party that they are starting to look like Democrats in the 1980′s.  That is a disservice to the entire country as I will always believe that we need “Loyal Opposition” in Washington.

Which brings me to Obama.  Heaven forbid that we have a President who actually uses his brain before making a decision that can (and does) get people killed.  Heaven forbid that we have a President that actually speaks about what the LAW says rather than how he feels about something.  Of course, his own party is turning on him since they have a re-election campaign this fall and Obamachrist hasn’t turned around 8 years of bad economy in a year and a half.  Let’s look at what he HAS done, shall we?

Pulled out of Iraq

Looks like the last of our combat troops will be home by the end of this month, and our remaining “advisors” will be home, as agreed, by the end of next year.  Mission Accomplished.

Stepped up in Afghanistan

Not always a popular move, but he did call his shot on this one, and he’s sticking to his guns.

The Economy

Things are improving.  Not fast enough for some, but we didn’t end up in the toilet overnight.  Quick fixes aren’t the answer here.

Taxes

Yep, I was right.  My taxes DID go down this year.

Turning the United States into a Fundamentalist Muslim Nation

Still waiting on this one.  Doesn’t look like it’s going to happen in the first term.

Honestly, I’d give Obama a B- so far.  I think he needs to be a little more assertive at times, but that is just a personality thing.  I also understand that he would be dignifying the arguments of all those lunatics out there if he took the time to address them all.  On the other hand, I’d love to see him call Palin a “Fucking Moron” in a speech from the Oval Office.  That’s why he’s President, and I’m just a smartass with a blog.

One final note.  Polticians and “power in high places” have only as much control over your life as you let them have.  The very worst they can do to you is make whatever you are doing illegal.  Considering that this very country was founded by a bunch of folks giving the thumb to King George, it is an important thing to realize that a fundamental part of our national character is our willingness to ignore the law when a greater good is at stake.  How you live your life is something that politicians can’t take away or give to you.  It’s your choice, now and always.  I tell you this because there is a lot of whining about passing this law or that law… Fuck the law.  Obey the dictates of your own conscience whether or not it is “legal”.  Don’t forget the 11th commandment, though.  “Thou shalt not get caught”. (courtesy of R.A. Heinlein)

That concludes the political part of this rant.  Let’s continue on to the personal shit, shall we?  I’ll use bullet points because if you’ve read this far, the last thing you want is another novel.

Wife and kids are doing great, so take anything said after this point with a grain of salt.  Life is good, but bitching about it is fun too.

• Mom and I aren’t speaking (again).
• My grandmother fell and broke a whole bunch of things.  I love you very much Nana.  I hope you are back on your feet quickly.
• Work has taken 2 years to get this reorganization done, and it’s a little frustrating.  Can’t complain otherwise, I love my job.
• Dragon*Con kicks ass, but my staff is sick to death of having such a Manic Boss.
• Weight is staying fairly constant (which is OK since I’ve been eating like total crap) and I’m feeling pretty good physically.

Moral of this story?  Stop wasting time worrying about the state of the entire damned world and focus on the things that are most important to you.  Family, career, personal interests.  Politicians and talking heads have been decrying the end of the world for centuries now and we’re still here.  If you’re so worried about the world blowing up, maybe you should just LET IT BLOW UP.  Then you’ll realize that the world keeps turning, and you still have the things that are truly important to you.  Life goes on, endlessly, and inexorably.  How you spend it is, was, and always will be up to you.

• The weight loss effort has hit a definite stall.  Not losing any ground, but not gaining any either.  Very frustrating.  Yes, I know it will pass in time, but it still sucks.

• Haiti.  Am I the only guy that can’t tell much of a difference in the “Before” and “After photos of that country?  Don’t get me wrong, I have strong sympathy for the people of that country.  Like nearly everyone else on the planet, I’ve made a donation or two because Lord knows those folks need all the help they can get.  However, it wasn’t exactly paradise before the earthquake hit.  I think most of the blame can be assigned to the corrupt, ineffectual leadership in Haiti.

And speaking of corrupt, ineffectual leadership…

*pause while I unlock the mental barrier which has been containing my anger*

• This country is doomed.

The ‘American Experiment’ is a failure.  “We The People” are too short-sighted, too self-righteous, and too uneducated to make a Constitutional Republic succeed.   Unlike many of the voters who voted for Barack Obama, I don’t think he’s the second coming of Christ.   I actually believe that if he got everything he wanted passed through Congress it would be a Bad Thing.  On the other hand, the Republican Party has gone from Clown Shoes to the completely absurd.

In government’s zeal to confer rights and privileges on their corporate supporters that individual humans do not enjoy, this country has become run by ‘The Highest Bidder’. (We can thank the Supreme Court, and the Republican-appointed majority, for this one…)

The Republican Party has become content to be the kid in the back of the classroom who shouts “nuh-uh!” whenever someone else tries to make a point.  If they can stop Obama from doing anything until the mid-term elections next year, all they will do during the campaign is say “See? Obama can’t do anything!” and ask the voters to put them back in charge.  And “We The People” will fall for it.  If you are one of those people who takes Limbaugh, Beck, or O’Reilly seriously, please… shoot yourself.   I’ll be the first to admit that they can be fun to listen to sometimes.  I am a big fan of Rush’s “Demonstrate Absurdity by Being Absurd” routine.  However, if you don’t realize that they bend and distort facts in order to support their own skewed world view then you lack the mental faculties necessary for effective exercise of your sovereign responsibilities in the political process.  (Translation: You’re too fucking stupid to vote.)

And the Democrats…  How, exactly, can you be so ineffective when you have a 60-40 majority in the Senate and a clear majority in the House?  Are you that scared of a filibuster?  Call their bluff and make them do it!  Make them stand on the floor of Congress for 48 hours and read a phone book or something.  Use some tricks of parliamentary procedure and force cloture.  For god’s sake don’t back down from a fight!  You want to know why voters are becoming upset with you?  Because you are the spineless cretins that your political opponents say you are.  Brew a few dozen pots of coffee, and camp out in the Senate chambers until the GOP runs out of steam on their filibuster.  Make them talk for a week if you have to.  Congressionally speaking, there isn’t one Democrat in either house with the will, leadership, or charisma to take the fight to the GOP.  Obama is the balls, brains, heart, and soul of the Democratic party right now, and would-be Presidential candidates would be well served by getting out there and kicking some butt right now.

Oh yeah, one more group…

Libertarians/Ron Paul-ites/None of the Above’rs

The reason that nobody votes for you is that you don’t run a candidate who can play the game.  I’m not saying you have to play by “their” rules, but you should at least know enough about how things are done in Washington to avoid tripping on yourselves once you get there.  Find a candidate who can engage people and has a touch of charisma, then hire the best political strategists you can find.  Wade in to the muck in Washington and get something done.  Otherwise, you’re a bunch of dilettante debaters whose Ivory Tower theories will never have the chance to be proven right or wrong.  Raise some money and win an election or two, then maybe you’ll be taken seriously enough to get your ideas into the minds of voters on a more regular basis than “Some pissed off techno-dweeb’s blog of rage” (you know… like mine.)

I am not sitting in front of my TV watching politicians talk about their latest plan to “save us”.   The only thing I ask of our political leadership is to keep things fair for all of us so that I can succeed on my own merits.   I don’t want to hear phrases like “Too Big To Fail” in the future.  I don’t want to hear politicians talk about “what’s fair for…” anyone that isn’t an individual (preferably ALL individuals) in our country.  “They” are spending way too much time and energy defending and serving interests other than the people of this country.  Why do I tell you this?

Because “They” are all crooks.  Every single one of them.  The whole rotten structure of our government is run by a bunch of opportunistic whores who would shoot their own kids if it would get them the votes they would need to stay in power.  Do you know whose fault it is that they are still there?

Ours…

and that is why we’re doomed.

The thing is, what Chez is feeling is hardly unique.  Songs are written, poems are composed, suicide notes are scrawled with many of the same feelings, they just aren’t as eloquently written in most cases.  We are constantly bombarded with the word “Love” in the course of talking about relationships, especially with our spouses or significant others, but ask someone to define the word.  Seriously, find 5 people you know and ask them “What does love mean?”

I’ll give you 10-1 odds that their answer is a mish-mash of Hallmark Card sentimentality and touchy-feely nonsense.

Leave it to the crankiest sonofabitch that ever trod shoeleather to give you all an explanation which will work for you, and probably help you in your relationships to boot.  First, let me provide some points on what “Love” is not.

• “Love” is not something that humans possess in finite quality.  You not only can love more than one person, you probably do.
• “Love” has not a damn thing to do with sex or desire.  The love you have for your parents or children is THE EXACT SAME (seriously, I can’t emphasize this enough) as the love you have for a spouse.
• “Love” may make a relationship work, but it is far from the only ingredient.  Love is not “all you need”.
• As nauseating as the “Love is patient. Love is kind.” speech from I Corinthians is, there is fundamental truth there.
• “Love” is not about mutual possession.  Two people can love each other regardless of the time or distance that separates them.
• Hate is not the opposite of Love.  They are two sides of the same emotion, and once you read my definition of “Love”, you’ll understand why.

First, to show you how messed up we have become with respect to this word, here is the Random House Dictionary definition of the word.

Srsly? Whatever happened to not using a word to define itself?  “To love is… to have love or affection”  Really, genius?

Robert Heinlein, via his most famous character, Lazarus Long, once came up with a definition of love that has worked for me over the years.

“Love” is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own… Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.

Not bad, eh?  When you take the time to think about all of the people you truly love, and the people who truly love you, how many times do you think of phrases such as “I just want you to be happy” or “I just want what’s best for you.“  By way of contrast, let’s look at something like a high school crush where the predominant feeling may be described as “I just want so-and-so to like me“  Desire?  Lust?  Probably.  Love?   Definitely not.  Here’s where “Love” has to be put in the proper place in a relationship.  It is quite possible to love someone, but be better off without them in your life.  How, you ask?

• Have you ever been in a relationship where you are constantly demonstrating love for another person, but the other person isn’t reciprocating?
• Have you ever been an “enabler” for someone you love who is engaging in self-destructive behavior?
• Have you ever heard the phrase “If you REALLY loved me…” and felt manipulated?
• Have you ever loved someone that you can’t trust?

Getting away from these people doesn’t mean that you no longer love them.  It means that you understand that your relationship with them is unsustainable for other reasons.  The opposite of love is not hate.  Hate is just a polarity shift.  Hate means that your feelings are just as strong.  The opposite of love is indifference.  If you no longer care, you no longer love.  It is important for your own self-esteem (and self-preservation) to stay away from those who would use your love against you in order to serve their own selfish needs.  It hurts, but it is necessary.

What makes me qualified to pontificate on the meaning of love?  For starters, I enjoy a very stable and happy relationship with my wife, and my definition works very well in the context of our relationship.  Our relationship is built more more than love.  We trust each other.  We know, despite everything that has happened in our relationship, that at the end of the day, she’ll be there for me and I will be there for her.  If that trust were to disappear, so would our relationship, but I’d still love her with all my heart.

Chez, I hope things turn out well for you.  I know that what you are going through isn’t easy, but understand that there are a lot of people out there who love you and want you to be happy.

In my circle of friends, we do a fair amount of abuse to one another.  We insult, we snark, we deal with it pretty well most of the time.  Not long ago, it got ugly.  I was never particularly fond of fat jokes, but with most of my friends, whether the have spelling issues that lead me to call them “illiterate” among other names, or dance like the worst cliche of “White Man’s Disease” you’ve ever seen, or have something else going on that is “fair game” for the rest of us, I’ve learned to deal with it, and not let it bother me too much.

That all changed the day one of my friend’s kid said “Kevin, you’re fat.” and started laughing.

If this had been an adult and not a 6 year old child, I would have broken his jaw.  I was so mad, I was literally shaking.  I can’t really hold it against the kid, he’s 6.  He doesn’t know better.  I guess I could hold it against his parents, but I’m reasonably sure that they would be mortified had I decided to make an issue of it.  I let it go, figuring that I’d get over it.

I didn’t.  Every time my friends even get close to that particular topic of discussion, I went silent.  The kind of silence that screams to anyone who knows me. “Don’t go here… You really don’t want to go here.”

In fact, several months later, it makes me just as angry today as it did then.  So much so that my friendship with this little boy’s father has suffered.  So much so that I am loathe to speak to him, lest I say something unkind about a child who had no idea what he was saying, or how much it hurt.

What it has also done, is motivated me.  Not because I’m trying to impress anyone, but because 10 years ago, it would have taken a bold man, indeed, to make such a comment in my presence.  The idea that my own friends don’t respect me because of this problem is nearly unbearable.

I’m seriously pissed about it, enough that I am shutting myself away from my own friends in order to do something about it.  I guess, at the end of the day, I’m most mad at myself, and that’s as safe a target for my anger as anyone.  The hell of it is, most of my friends talk often of their own struggles with losing weight, but for some reason, I wound up as the punching bag.  I can take it, that’s not the issue.  The problem is that I have enough pride not to want to even be mentioned in such a discussion.  Anger and pride can be a powerful motivator if used correctly.

And *that’s* where the drive comes from.

Last night, I hit my brink, and cruised right over into the abyss.

The next person who gives me unsolicited weight management advice is going to get a punch in the fucking mouth.  The last thing I need to hear is some 185 pound gym rat give me yet another lecture on health and fitness.  I’m 6’4 and 325 pounds.  I can throw a beer keg almost 50 feet and play 3 sets of doubles tennis in 90 degree heat.  I took that “100 pushup challenge” and squeezed out 70 pushups before getting bored on my first attempt (finishing the last 30 just on general principle).  I am built like a freakin’ grizzly bear and just about as strong as one.  I’m not a couch-potato, but at 37 years of age, I’d like to be in better shape.  I don’t need to be built like a power lifter, and I’m not trying to “get huge”.  I want to lose some pounds not because I look terrible, but because I want to improve.   Yet all sorts of “educated” people look at the numbers 3-2-5 and think “raging lard ass”.  These are usually the same people who meet me in person and say “You don’t LOOK like you weigh 325.”  A couple of weeks ago, some moron started cracking fat jokes when I mentioned that I weighed 325 pounds, right before I pointed out that he and I have the same waist size.

It aggravates me to no end to hear people refer to BMI and charts that were developed 30 years ago in order to determine if someone is “fit” or not.  I am sick of hearing all about “lifestyle changes” and “new ways of living” for anyone who can’t shop off the rack at Banana Republic.

I don’t WANT to look like an Pimpercrombie & Bitch model.  I just want to make the transition into middle age in a little bit better shape.

Yet to achieve these goals, I am exposed to a constant litany of advice such as

• Work out every day for at least an hour (Who has this kind of time?  Do you have a job?)
• Don’t eat carbohydrates (I understand low carb dieting, and the fact that it sheds weight, but let’s face it.  Bread has been a staple of the human diet since the dawn of time.  Now you’re saying that it’s unhealthy?)
• Don’t eat fat (Oh, explain to me how everyone else on the planet PREFERS fat in their diet as a delicacy, but the US of low fat A is getting fatter by the day?)
• Don’t eat sugar (Which one? Sucrose, Fructose, Dextrose, Sucralose, Upyernose?  You telling me that the sugar in a piece of fruit is just as bad for you as a Twinkie?)
• Take our magic diet pill and the pounds will just fall right off. (Along with your liver, kidneys, and maybe even heart.)
• Try our all-natural Acai-berry-and-ant-fart smoothie… (Because if that fat bitch, Oprah, says it then it MUST be true.)

Weight Watchers, of all groups, has figured it out better than a lot of folks.  There is no magic pill.  There is no “Amazing Fat Loss Secret”.  Watch what you eat, get some exercise, and don’t expect to lose weight that took you 30 years to gain in 30 days.

The hell of it is, I’m not in terrible shape.  My most recent physical showed that my heart is healthy, my cholesterol is just slightly above normal, and my blood pressure is borderline.  In the words of my own physician, “nothing that losing a little more weight won’t cure.”

So why did I tell my wife “Fuck it, it’s easier to get fat and die” last night?

Because my doctor sent me a “diet plan” that was not much more than:

• Don’t eat white starches (rice, pasta, potatoes, white bread)
• Don’t eat sugar
• Eat lots of veggies
• Eat lean meat

No information on portion control, caloric intake, nutrient intake or even exercise.  Don’t get me wrong, I sincerely hope that it’s just this easy, but in an effort to look into “Low Carb diet” (which was the heading on the “diet plan” that the doc sent me), I ran into the biggest problem in the information age.

Too much crap, not enough useful information.

30 minutes of Google-surfing just about made me want to scream.  I saw plans that ranged from the dangerous (Eat no carbs… ever.) to the merely draconian (<40 grams of carbohydrates/day).  My wife, who was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes when she was pregnant with our daughter, went to a dietician who put her on a regimen of 6 meals per day, with no more than 30 grams of carbohydrates per meal.  It balanced out her blood sugar, and she actually dropped 30 pounds during her pregnancy. (not counting the baby, of course)  Now I’m pretty sure her situation is different than my own, but that said, her diet plan seemed to consist of

• Don’t eat too many carbohydrates (with specifics on how much is allowed)
• Eat as much protein as you can
• Avoid sugar when possible

Look familiar?  Doc may be on to something here.

This week, we’re putting together the shopping list and diet plan.  I started my workout regimen this week. For those of you who are interested, take a good long look at Kettlebells.  I started with a 53-pounder, and you can get an impressively tiring workout in a short time with these. (Average workout might take 15-20 minutes/day)

That takes care of the diet and exercise plan.  Here’s the final important part.  Get a support group (again, Weight Watchers is really good at this) of people who can motivate you to keep going when your own self-discipline is flagging a bit.  If you need someone to talk you through a rough patch, drop ME a note.  I’ll help however I can.   You’ve taken your entire life to get to the point where you are today.  Don’t expect to undo all of the damage in a month or two.

I avoid doctors like the plague.  If I ain’t bleeding to death or in serious pain, I figure I’ll be alright with or without the doctor’s advice to rest and take whatever chemical brew that Big Pharma is paying them to push on unsuspecting patients this week.   That said, I have a cordial relationship with my doctor.  I bite the bullet and take a physical whenever my wife’s nagging gets to the point where I feel like shutting her up about the subject.  I know the following medical facts about myself.

I am 6’4 and weigh approximately 330 pounds.  This is considered “heavy” or “obese” by whatever chart was written 30 years ago as the official reference for such things.  These same experts say that I should weigh 185 pounds despite the fact that any physiologist who knows how to measure body fat will tell you that my lean body weight  is 230 pounds.

My bloodpressure is guaranteed to be close to 140/90, which isn’t awesome, but it’s nothing to worry about.

I can play 3 sets of competitive (ALTA, B-5) tennis in summer, and while I might be grumpy, I’ll survive the experience.

My liver function has been abnormal since I was a teenager.  Some enzymes are a little over the “high” mark, but I’ve had several ultrasounds and the diagnosis has always been “fatty liver”.

All in all, I am not exactly a Spartan, but I’m strong as an ox, and smell nearly as bad.

It all started with a simple blood test.  My wife and I were expecting our first child, and her doctor wanted me to get tested to make sure our (soon-to-be) daughter would be free from any genetic gotchas.

My doctor, knowing that I am an incorrigible smart-ass, goes through the usual routine…

“When are you coming in for a physical?”

Soon…

“You know you need to…”

Lose a few pounds, doc… Got it.

“Your liver…”

…function is a little abnormal, nothing to worry about.

You get the idea.

The Doc turns me over to his team of vampires who take a couple of gallons of blood and send them off to the lab.  A week later, I get a call to come to his office to pick up the forms to send to my wife’s doc. (Clever trap, doc… you could have faxed them yourself.)  While I’m there…

What’s up, Doc? (And yes, I really do start my conversations with him this way.  He rolls his eyes and groans like an appreciative audience.)

“How about Diabetes?”

*sound of a record needle scratching*

Well, fuck me running.  That’s a new one.  He says “I’d like to do a fasting glucose test on you to make sure, but your A1C number is way outta whack.“  Long story short, my blood sugar would have had Dracula bouncing off the walls like a 6-year-old with his first Mountain Dew.  The Doc pulls me in to his office for “The Big Sitdown”.

I get a prescription for Metformin.

I get told to lose weight… or else.

Now some of you, intellectually, may think you understand “or else”.  Let me go ahead and tell you that it has a whole new range of color and texture when you are the target of those words.

I went on Weight Watchers that very day.  I took my medicine and started putting together an exercise plan.  I was the very picture of motivation.

Oh, but “They” weren’t through motivating me yet.

I told a good friend of mine at the office about my predicament.  He grabbed my arm and marched me to his desk.  He pulled out a backpack and handed it to me.

“What’s this?”

“Open it…”

It was his “Diabetes Kit”.  All 11 prescriptions he had to take, his blood sugar measuring gear, and enough other stuff to completely fill the backpack.

“You want to take all this?  Then listen to your doc and do what he says.”

It did not escape my notice that one of the prescriptions was for Viagra.

“Oh yeah, one of the side effects of taking all these other drugs… Good thing I already have 3 kids.”

It was at that moment when I felt real fear for the first time.  Not “Oh lord, this is going to hurt…” fear.  This was the first time I ever felt “I’m going to die if I don’t handle this.”

Over the next 6 months, I dropped nearly 30 pounds. (I had weighed in at 348 when I got tested)  I was feeling better than I had felt in a long time.  I went back to the doc, and got the best news I could have imagined.

• No more drugs.
• “Pre-diabetic, managed with diet and exercise”  (It turns out that my family history indicates a tendency towards diabetes.  It ain’t ever going away completely.  That’s just cold hard genetics.)
• Keep dropping weight, and you’ll have a clean bill of health.

A little while later, my wife and I welcomed our daughter into the world, and my diet went pretty much straight to hell.  I gained 10-15 pounds back over the next 8-9 months, but I was exercising more.  I went back to the doc for my physical (because now I knew that it would be anything but routine from now on.)

• Blood Pressure 130/80
• A1C number still high, but just barely.
• Cholesterol numbers just slightly outside of normal.
• Liver and Kidney functions are normal. (!!! That’s a first…)

Oh but wait…

It seems that there was an irregularity in my EKG. (That’s “heart” for those of you who don’t sling medical lingo)  There was a possibility that there was a small blockage near my heart.

Here we go again.

So the doc signs me up for a stress test, and I go get the radioactive shot.  Long story short, it came up clean, but there was that reminder again.

“or else.”

The Doc, also noticing that the Metformin had helped with my weight loss, put me back on the medication, and added some blood pressure meds along with a cholesterol pill.  I believe that it is probably overkill considering the numbers, and said as much.

“Hey, if you’ll go ahead and lose the rest of that weight, we won’t have to worry about these pills anymore.”

I’d like to say that all of this has been enough motivation to get me to stick to a diet & exercise plan and drop the pounds, but there’s more…

But that is a post for a later date.  Suffice to say that I am ready to do something about this, and the first step is challenging myself by putting all this out there for others to see, and for me to go back and review from time to time.  I want to lose 75 pounds by the end of this year.   Maybe that goal is a little too ambitious, but even getting partway there would represent a victory of sorts.

• Goal:  255 pounds by the end of the year.
• Start Weight:  330 pounds. (Monday, 5/25/2009)
  
• Current Progress: 0 pounds.

Not only was my ear ringing so loud that it sounded like I was at a rock concert, but for some reason my jaw wouldn’t close. Did I mention the pain?

I make an appointment with my dentist, because TMJ and I are old friends. The doc takes one look at me and says “Dislocated Jaw… I can’t treat this, we need to get you to an oral surgeon”. So my jaw and I, apparently we are not on speaking terms any more, head to the surgeon’s office (he had a slot open that same day, thank god). He pokes (ow), he prods (Ow!), and he twists (OW! GODDAMMIT!) my jaw and says “yep, you’re dislocated alright. Only problem is that there is so much swelling behind your left ear that we can’t set it back in place. I’ll give you some muscle relaxers for the time being, but you need to see your doctor.

So I see my doctor, who says “Oh yeah, you definitely have TMJ, and your jaw is definitely dislocated (gee, thanks doc). Your ear is so swollen that I can’t even see your eardrum. Your ear canal is completely closed.” Now we add antibiotics and hydrocortizone to the list of things I get to take.

You can imagine how much fun I was as my wife and I drove to Charlotte on Wednesday…

So now we’re to Thursday, my ear is still swollen shut, but at least I can touch my teeth together for the first time in 4 days. (Still not aligned right, but getting there.) I get to sit with a room full of fellow auditioneers and try out for Jeopardy. “Hey, Kevin, tell us about yourself.. Mmpph mmmmm mmm phmmmmph”

Miraculously, I manage to survive the audition process and am now in the contestant pool for Jeopardy, jaw and all.

Here it is, one week later. I can close my jaw just fine and my dislocation is a thing of the past (thank god), but my ear is still ringing, and the swelling is now to the point where I can hear for a few seconds, then my ear stops up again… rinse and repeat all day long.

Just in time to return to work next week  and deal with all of my stressed out co-workers who think that I have been on vacation for a week while they were in the office dealing with Swine Flu.  If it weren’t for my wife, I would be a very scary person to be around right now.

I think we have finally settled the question “Who is the biggest asshole on the planet?“

Officer Robert Powell of Plano Texas, COME ON DOWN!

What kind of extraordinary douche bag stops a car in the Emergency Room parking lot of a hospital, then holds up a panicky family for 20 minutes while, according to nurses on the scene, the man’s mother is “blue coding for the third time”?  For those of you without a background in medical drama or comedy TV, “Code Blue” means that the patient (again, this man’s mother) is dying.  “Code Blue” is when George Clooney gets out the shock paddles and has a concerned look on his face as he screams “CLEAR!!!”

Now I might consider understanding the officer’s point of view if the suspect in question were drunk, drug addled, or waving a gun around.  We’re talking about a man, with his family, in the parking lot of the hospital.  Could a reasonable human being even consider the possibility that this family somehow poses a risk to public safety?

For Christ’s sake, even the other officer on the scene said “Hey, let him go!” but NOOOOOOOOOooo.  Officer Powell just HAD to have that insurance paperwork “rightthehellnow”.

“I can screw you over… your attitude sucks.”

This is what an officer says to a man who’s mother is dying?

What’s worse is that he did just that.  When the young man and his family finally made it upstairs to his mother’s room, she was gone. (Oh, and he was toting a fresh new traffic ticket, courtesy of Officer Douche Bag.)

The Dallas police department, when informed of the incident, formally apologized and dropped all charges against the young man, Ryan Moats.  An investigation is underway, but I’m not sure anyone in Internal Affairs wants to plumb to the bottom of the rabbit hole that is Officer Powell’s psyche.

I am normally not a big fan of professional athletes using their fame, fortune, and position to throw their weight around with the authorities, but as it happens, Mr. Moats is a running back for the Houston Texans.  It is my sincere hope that this young man uses every means at his disposal to ruin Officer Powell’s life as much as is humanly possible.  Powell shouldn’t be in charge of a stamp collection, much less have a badge and a gun.

Hey Powell.  it’s overblown, self-important bullies like you who give real cops a bad name.  If there is any justice in the world, you’ll be drinking from a brown paper bag in a few weeks and living on the street.  I’d rather have the cast of Reno 911 defending my streets than see you continue to hide behind a badge, you fucking coward.

First, here’s the video.

Now, as you might imagine, the civil libertarian types are up in arms about this. After all, 2 cops beating up a 15-year old girl isn’t exactly a fair fight, nor would any reasonable human being claim that the cops were in any danger. I would imagine that the police officer in this video is going to get crucified.

But should he?

Seriously, they’re working in a local jail which is one of the most stressful jobs on the planet. Some dipshit teenager is mouthing off to them and then kicks her shoes at the police officer. Cops aren’t paid to fight fair, and no amount of compensation justifies taking abuse, verbally or otherwise, from a prisoner. Exactly how hard is it for a prisoner to keep their mouths shut and do as they are told? This isn’t a Rodney King scenario where the “victim” is a free man and not (yet) in custody. This girl was booked and in jail. She was not free, nor should she enjoy the rights of a free citizen. The cops quickly (if a bit harshly) subdued her and then stopped. It appears from watching the video that one officer landed a couple of stiff shots after they had the prisoner down, but if she was still struggling or resisting, then she had it coming.

Jail sucks. But if you keep your mouth shut and do what you’re told, then the guards don’t give you any shit. In fact, they can be downright friendly as long as you understand that they have all of the power and authority and you have none whatsoever. You do not bargain, you do not argue, and you do not refuse a lawful request from “the man”. (And if it is unlawful, they can STILL make you do it before you will be able to get a lawyer. Remember, you have ZERO power. If you fight, you will get put down, hard.)

It seems to be popular with people, especially young ones, to “fight the power” and “stand up to the man”. That’s all well and good if it is for a good cause, but remember. “The man” didn’t get to be that way by collecting stamps. Power is very real, and fighting it can hurt. If your cause is just, then be prepared to take whatever is necessary in order to fight for it, but fighting authority for no good reason will just get you a set of lumps. Something this girl isn’t going to forget anytime soon.

I’m not talking about the rather amusing movie by Terry Gilliam.  I’m talking about a mental disorder where a person fakes or induces illness in order to gain the sympathy of others.  In an age of attention whores, I suppose this represents the Mount Everest of attention-whoredom.  What makes this particularly vile is that the whore in question abuses the trust of their friends in order to gain that attention.  Any idiot can troll for their 15 minutes of fame on a forum or blog, but it takes an especially lame human being to betray the trust of friends in order to satisfy their need for sympathy and attention by claiming illness.

Cancer, to be specific.

“Mr. C” and I are well acquainted.  You see, God has, in what appears to be a rarity for Him, given me a crystal clear picture of what will happen if I start smoking.  Every member of my family who smoked is dead.  Specifically, they died from Lung Cancer.  Father.  Grandmother.  Grandfather.  All dead.  All dead from Lung Cancer.  The members of my family who didn’t smoke?  Well, the youngest of the ones who died did so in their 80′s. (ironically enough, smoke inhalation was involved)  I have one family member who has rivaled Keith Richards for heaviest lifetime drug consumption, but she’s still ticking along in her mid-80s.  Why?  The one drug she hasn’t touched (at least in my lifetime) is cigarrettes.

You can imagine that I’m a little sensitive when the word “Cancer” comes into play.

So when I hear that a friend is diagnosed with Cancer, and I hear that this person is saying their goodbyes.  I make it a point to show up.  I care.  I know, first hand, what it is like to comfort the dying.  I know what it’s like to say goodbye for the last time.  Saying “it sucks” is an insult to black holes everywhere.

So we say our goodbyes, and in the process, I manage to wear another set of treads down my own personal version of “Memory Lane from Hell”.  I see the faces, I remember the last conversations, I feel it all over again.  Some people are sad, but I’m past that part.  I get into full-blown pissed-off-at-the-world-and-want-to-make-you-feel-my-pain mode.  I open the door to the darkest parts of my soul and let the demons run wild for a little while.  In non-dramatic parlance, I am not a very nice person when I go through this.

As bad as all of that sounds, it is nothing.  It is something I will gladly bear for a friend, because at that moment, my friend needs me.  Needs to know that someone is going to stand by them to the bitter end.  It is an act of love, and an act of faith to comfort the dying.  It is one of the things in life that allows a human being to unequivicably declare their friendship, their compassion, and their love for another human being.

It is also an act of trust.

In this case, a trust that was ultimately betrayed.  It seems that she is not as sick as she has let on.

I would like to say that I am going to be the bigger man and not vent any hatred or bitterness about this.  After all, in the long range scheme of things, what does it really matter?  I could take solace in the fact that someone who I called a friend is NOT dying.  I could “find the pony”.

There is an old story about a boy bounding downstairs on Christmas morning only to find the living room brimming over with horse manure. Undaunted, the boy exclaimed, “There must be a pony!” Wrapped within an unfailing youthful optimism, the boy could only see something good in what was an otherwise dire situation.

Instead, I’m going to let it out.  There is no reason for me to hold this in to make someone feel better who has abused my trust in this way.

You (and you know who “You” are) are dead to me already.  You’re not a person with thoughts, feelings, hopes, and dreams of their own.  You are an abstract.  You are an Internet-fucking-cliche, and know that as long as you continue to draw breath, whether it be for one minute, or one millennium, there will be someone on this Earth who feels nothing for you but contempt.

The great thing about contempt is that is eventually evolves into complete apathy.  Not the “oh gee, that’s a shame” apathy when you read a news report about some stranger dying in a horrible accident, but rather the “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire” kind of apathy.  If you were sentenced to the electric chair and I won the lottery to pull the switch on your pathetic self, I would be popping open a can of beer before you stopped shaking and looking for a ride to the nearest bar to celebrate my service to the community.

Don’t be confused.  I don’t hate you at all.  I hope you live a long life with only yourself as company.  I hope you get to walk down the same kind of memory lane that I do, and see the faces of the dead and dying as they leave you in this life, one-by-one.  I hope every step on that path feels like burning coals and that when your own time comes, that you face it knowing that everyone who ever cared about you has already moved on either physically or emotionally and that you die utterly alone.

On second thought, you aren’t that important to me.  I’m going to focus more on enjoying my own life.

Seriously, has there ever been a more contrived “buy shit you don’t need for that special someone” holiday?  It is as if Hallmark, DeBeers, and FTD all got together and said “How can we milk these suckers for even more dough?”  Toss in a healthy smattering of materialistic women (commonly referred to as “bitches and hoes” in many popular forms of musical entertainment) who look at this day as another excuse to cajole the men in their lives to buy them shit in exchange for continued affection (Isn’t that called prostitution in some jurisdictions?) and you have Valentine’s Day.

In fact, the Catholic Church itself isn’t quite sure which St. Valentine they’re celebrating on this day.  It certainly has nothing to do with “the patron saint of lovers”.  That would be an invention of Geoffrey Chaucer.

How did my wife and I spend today?  We took the car in for an oil change, got haircuts, and no… not in some fancy salon.  Crazy Dave’s, for those of you in the Atlanta area, is just about right.  They do better work than the “SuperCuts” places out there, but aren’t full of snotty and preening metrosexuals like the top-end joints.  There is definitely a market for places that cut hair but don’t suck all of the testosterone out of you in the process. Oh, and after that, we came home and took a nap.

Reminds me of what my dad said to me when I told him that Kathy and I would be getting married on April 15th. (Tax day, for those of you not in the US)

“Real fuckin’ romantic, junior…”

Maybe not, but I have a stable, successful, and happy relationship with my wife.  How YOU doin’, Don Juan?

Most of the commercials were “meh”.  Budweiser had the usual cute animal spots.  GoDaddy showed off their 12-year-old sense of humor. (and believe me.  I respect that.)  Doritos and the “Crystal Ball” spot had the best commercial…

What really got me was Cash4Gold.com.  Ok, it was funny to dig up Ed McMahon’s bones, and nice of them to give Stanley Burrell (aka MC Hammer) a ride from his day job at the car wash in order to pitch for C4G and remind us all of how old we have become since the last time either of them were relevant.  But c’mon.  “Mail us your vaulables in a clear plastic envelope and we’ll send you a check for how much we think your jewelry is worth”???  Seriously?  Mail them gold and silver and trust them to cut you a check for a fair amount.

Really?

I know this will come as a shock to most of you, but apparently this is one giant scam!

I recently came across an article called “Confessions of a Cash4Gold Employee“  The article itself is poorly written, which tells me that there is a better than average chance that it’s legit.  After all, if you were very smart, would you have gone to work for Cash4Gold.com in the first place?

I especially liked this example given.

“For ex: Sally Smith receives a check for $27.86 for a Rolex watch(which we don’t issue value for), a class ring, a ring with diamond chips, a pair of earrings with emeralds, as well as a few sterling silver pieces, and maybe a few items that were really of no value”

Ok… I appreciate that the economy sucks.  But seriously, anyone who sends a freakin’ ROLEX to these people deserves what they get.   The author goes on to describe how customer service routinely doubles or triples the amount of money given to people who call in to complain.  After all, paying an additional 50 bucks for the Rolex is still a net profit for the Cash4Gold folks.

Of course, since the “refiner’s kit” they send you is insured for a maximum value of 100 dollars, it is easier for them just to say “It got lost in transit” and have the insurance company pay you off.  Predictably enough, this is apparently a common practice at C4G as well.

Don’t be a sucker, kids…

Rest assured, that is going to change, very soon.

For now,  suffice to say that I’m back in the gym (more details to come) and life is getting somewhat close to normal once again.  We recently had to change web hosts, so if you see any unusual behavior on the site, please let me know ASAP.

-Grim

It seems that LiveJournal might be going the way of the carrier pigeon.  Their parent company, Sup, a Moscow-based company, has laid off 20 of LJ’s 28 employees with no warning or severance and blamed it all on a “downturn in the economy”.

The article goes on to talk about other social networking sites that may be going out of business in the near future, but I’d like to take a look at a larger concept.

How do websites justify the ridiculous amounts of money that they “earn”?

Advertising?  Seriously, do you know anyone who has ever clicked an ad banner?  I have a hard time finding someone who doesn’t have ad blocking software integrated with their browser.  I don’t blame web companies for cashing in on this phenomenon.   If someone offered me a million bucks per year to put ads all over my website, I’d do it too.  What I’m wondering is why companies pay incredible sums of money to advertise on the web or on TV.  Ad revenue is the driving force behind things like

• The Tostito’s Fiesta Bowl (ok, EVERY bowl game)
• The BCS in general
• 2.6 million dollars for a 30-second ad during the Super Bowl
• News Corp. (Fox) paying 580 million dollars for Myspace
  
• Google
• Stadium Naming Rights

I understand advertising.  I understand the business need to get your name out to the public in order to increase interest in your product.  However, the dollar amounts here are far beyond the point of getting any kind of reasonable return on investment.

Citigroup paid 400 million dollars for naming rights at the New York Mets’ new stadium. Wait a minute.  Do you mean the same Citigroup that recently took billions of dollars in bailout money from the Federal government?  The same folks who are begging for dollars from Uncle Sugar are spending 400 million bucks to name a baseball stadium?  (the same baseball stadium that was paid for by taxpayer dollars?)  The same Citigroup that paid millions to have their name attached to the annual Rose Bowl game?

I have a special message for all of you Madison Avenue types out there.  We don’t watch 99% of the commercials that you throw out there.  Thanks to the two greatest inventions of all time, the TiVO and the remote control, we either fast forward through commercials when we are watching a recorded show, or flip channels to something else while commercials are running on live TV.  You’re paying millions of dollars for ad time that viewers spend going to the restroom, making a sandwich, walking the dog, changing the channel, or outright fast-forwarding past.  Web advertisers?  If your ad is seen by a million users (and that is a seriously optimistic case, given ad blocking software), let’s say that you get a click-through rate of 1% (according to this article, the actual click-through rate was 0.5% back in 1998)  That leaves us with 10,000 people who clicked your ad.  Of that, let’s say that 10% of those users actually buy your widget. (The number in the article is 12%)  That’s 1,000 sales or a 0.1% rate of success for your advertising.

So, using that number as our basis, let’s look at a Super Bowl ad.   Last year, the Super Bowl was viewed by a record audience of 97.5 million people.  If we use the figure of 3 million dollars for airtime and tack on another couple of million for other costs (actors, filming, ad exec salary, etc) we have a nice round figure of 5 million dollars.  0.1% of 97.5 million is 97,500 people who purchased your good or service because of your Super Bowl ad.  Let’s round that up to an even 100,000 people.  5 million dollars for 100,000 sales comes out to 50 bucks per “widget”.   Do you know anyone who would pay 50 bucks for a case of Budweiser?  Pepsi?  Tostitos?  Pizza Hut?

Pets dot-freakin-com?

If I were an advertiser, I would focus my efforts on being “easy-to-find”.  I’d make focus on an online presence and make sure that if someone searched the web for “widgets” that my company would be one of the first one’s found.  To that end, I can understand how Google makes a ton of money.  Search engines are ideal for advertising because people are looking for you.  Paying a ton of money to expose your company to an indifferent (at best) audience is not a good investment.

Oh, and for the record, I still have no freakin’ clue what insight.com is or why they have their own bowl game, and I have absolutely no desire to find out.

Twisted Sister is still around, 20 years after asking the question “What do you wanna do with your life?”

I only hope I’m still having this much fun when I’m their age.

-Grim

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Austrian Death Machine with one of the world’s best loved Christmas carols.

Santa's Inbox

Just thought I’d add a little levity to the holiday season.  I especially liked the email from Oprah about “patenting gift giving”.

Only 10 more shopping days, so get out there and be a good little producing/consuming wage slave!  (Yeah, like I’m not going to be up to my eyeballs in shopping just like everyone else…) ]]> http://www.grimnews.net/2008/12/a-little-holiday-humor/feed/ 0 http://www.grimnews.net/2008/12/something-to-listen-to/ http://www.grimnews.net/2008/12/something-to-listen-to/#comments Sat, 13 Dec 2008 18:15:43 +0000 Grim http://www.grimnews.net/?p=536 Yeah, I know I haven’t been writing in a while.  I’ll fix that as soon as I return from this weekend’s family Christmas activities.

Meanwhile, here is a little cheerful something to listen to until I return.

Plainsong by The Cure.  “Cheerful” is being deliberately obtuse, but this is one of the prettiest songs I’ve heard, and I’m not normally a fan of “pretty” music.  Trey and Matt were right when they said “Disintegration is the best album ever!“  Top to bottom, it is a record worth listening to.

Oh, and to give you an idea of what has been taking most of my time lately…

Executive Summary: More maudlin shit about the holidays without my dad. I’ll “get over it” when I’m god damned good and ready.

Still with me? That’s nice, but this is for me, if you get something out of it, that’s great too.

So we had Thanksgiving dinner at my stepmother’s house. My step mom, her new significant other, some friends. and of course, my wife.

My stepmother broke out “The Good China”, which as any of you who understand why I capitalized those words knows means “It’s Officially the Holiday Season Now.” It felt like just about every other holiday meal with the obvious exception of the deceased patriarch and obligatory crying and swapping of stories among those who knew him.

The table is the traditional “Table which is way too damn long to fit in a normal sized dining room, but we’ll do it anyway”. Places are set, and after some drinks and socializing, which involved beer and the end of the LSU/Arkansas game, dinner was ready.

As everyone filed into the dining room to begin the hyper-ingestion of tryptophan laden goodness, I went to my usual space near the head of the table and started to sit down. I felt a gentle nudge from my stepmother and she said, very quietly, “Son, you’re at the head of the table now.”

You have no idea how those words can change your whole perspective.

For those of you who may be unacquainted with the niceties of formal dining, let me take a minute to explain.

You’ve surely seen large families eating a holiday meal, and you’ve probably noticed that the father always sits at the end of the table. That’s old-school etiquette/tradition, and it isn’t an accident. The head of the table, socially-speaking, is “master of the feast” and the de-facto host of the dinner. What my stepmother was saying to me was “You are the head of the family now”.

As I said, it was an “instant perspective change”. I was still thinking “But this is Dad’s chair!” when my stepmother asked me to say the blessing. Since I really didn’t feel like adding hypocrisy to my already formidable list of sins, I handle it the proper way and ask my stepmother’s significant other (who is more religiously inclined, and the oldest guest present) to lead us in giving thanks. After a short prayer, I thought to myself “Wow, I handled that pretty well.” and then got right back to “What the hell am I doing in dad’s chair?”

As the dinner conversation started, I felt like all eyes were on me. There is a big difference between looking across the table and seeing one person, and looking across the table and seeing everyone seated in front of you. I had noticed that the conversations, unconsciously I’m sure, always focused on me somehow. Someone would make a point, and look at me and say “Isn’t that right?” or “What do you think?” Each time I heard that, I heard a voice inside my head “This is dad’s chair.”

As the meal progressed, and plates were emptied for the 3rd or 4th time, I slowly started to accept the fact that it was “my chair” now. I did nothing to earn it, nor do I particularly want it, especially not the way I wound up getting it. I just happened to be the person it came to. I further realized that when my wife and I have children of our own, one of them is going to have the same experience I had. They’re going to sit in “my chair” and think to themselves “I shouldn’t be here, this is dad’s chair.” In a way, it’s a kind of royalty. The only reason I am in this chair is because I am the son of the previous occupant. Someday, I will leave this chair to make room for my child, and I might not be there to tell him (or her) that it’s his chair now. They’ll have to figure it out on their own and do the best they can to be the kind of parent they want to be. Just as I will.

Happy Holidays…

-Grim

With the holidays coming up, I’ve been doing less writing and a little more “autoblogging” than normal because I’m doing more reading than writing these days.  It’s not like my schedule is going to improve, but when I have the chance, I’ll share whats on my mind other than the lines at Toys R’ Us. (Sam’s first Christmas, daddy is going all out, not that she’ll know what any of it is… It really is more fun to give than to receive.)

Speaking of family, one of my wife’s endearingly bad habits is watching what I like to call “train wreck TV”.  These “reality” shows (mostly on VH1 and MTV) range from the merely ridiculous (“Rock of Love“, with Bret Michaels… Wait a second, you mean to tell me that the lead singer of a hair metal band needs a reality show to meet women?) to the completely deranged (“Next“, where contestants earn money for each minute that they “survive” in the presence of the most vapid and shallow member of the opposite (or not) sex than MTV’s producers could find.)

But the all time champion in this arena is a show called “The PIckup Artist“  Take a dozen or so “losers”, given them a makeover, Hollywood style, and then watch them take advice from a self-styled “Pick up artist” named (get this) Mystery, along with a few random and forgettable sidekicks with equally ludicrous names. (Seriously, I’d like to see this guy in action… “Hi.  My name is Mystery.” followed by the inevitable snickering and giggling from his “target”.  Of course, in Hollyweird, such a line might actually work, and such a name might actually be genuine.)

What really kills me is that these coaches actually display a keen grasp of psychology.  They really do understand what the “mating dance” is all about, and they’ve refined such a “mysterious” (pun intended) art into textbook science.  I found myself learning something in spite of the repeated snickers and snorts from me and my wife.  What did I learn?

• Take care of yourself and your appearance.  If you don’t look like you can take care of yourself, how is any woman going to expect you to take care of her?

• Be relaxed, happy, and confident.  Sounds easier than it is sometimes, but nobody wants to be with a downer.

• Pay attention to hints, both verbal and non-verbal.  If she isn’t interested, stop wasting her, and your, time.

• Don’t be “too interested”.  Nobody wants a person who appears desperate.

Of course, there are finer points to each of these, and the show goes into these subjects in nauseating detail, but I have to give credit where it is due.  In the midst of reality-tv crap land, someone is actually taking time to espouse points that are applicable to normal, healthy adults.

One might think that these points are somewhat obvious.  If you are one of those people, take a second and give your significant other a squeeze and take comfort in the fact that you have already succeeded in the mating dance.   Remind yourself that you were once that “shy guy” or “shy girl”.

Anyhoo, that’s all for me on a Monday.  I’m going to go play with my kid before I go to work.

I will keep providing original content, but I wanted to make sure that you have reason to check in on the site every day, and not just the 3 or 4 times/week when I have something new to write.

-Grim

I didn’t mean for this blog to go so political, but let’s face it, the Presidential election has been the biggest story out there in the last 2 months.

Since I’ve pretty much exhausted one of my nasty habits, politics, let’s talk about my other most disgusting habit.  Online Gaming.  If you’re reading this site, then you most likely have a passing familiarity with me, personally.  If you didn’t know that I am a weekly columnist at Massively.com, I’ll wait right here while you go check it out.

In the gaming world, there is a story that rivals the Presidential election in terms of importance (to the gaming community, at any rate).  Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft are releasing their second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, this Thursday.  With just over 11 million players, WoW is, by far, the largtest Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game in the world.

You may have heard stories in the news about grown men who take a day off of work when the latest Madden game hits the shelves?  I know, personally, grown men who are taking a WEEK’S worth of vacation in order to play this game when it comes out.  The games are so popular that Dr. Phil and others of his ilk run shows asking if these games are addictive.

To them, I would respond with one of the following:

• Are weekend golfers who spend 8 hours (or more) out of the house every weekend playing golf, addicted?
• Are couch potatoes, who spend 4-6 hours/day in front of a TV, addicted?
• Are women (or men), who spend 8-10/hours shopping on any given weekend, addicted?

It’s a hobby, folks.  Just like any other.  Like any good hobby, there are those who become compulsive or obsessive about it, and such people will always have something upon which to focus their attention.  While I spend more than a little time playing this game, I manage to have a good job, a good home, a good family, and good friends. In fact, I even manage to make a little extra money writing about my hobby.

This hobby has allowed me to meet people I never would have met otherwise.  Thanks to online gaming, I have been given the chance to meet movie stars, have dinner and drinks with TV stars from my favorite shows, and even sign autographs of my own. (Yes, he knew exactly who I was, and didn’t confuse me for someone else.)

There are those out there, most likely people who were just a little too popular in high school, who say that people like me “have no life”.  In fact, it is one of the most common insults in the gaming world to say that someone “has no life” when they are particularly successful in a game.  I have a wonderful wife, a beautiful baby girl, a job paying enough that I have to pay attention to the upper tax brackets, a chance to meet and mingle with celebrities from time to time, and get paid to write about my hobby.  Oh, and every piece of computer equipment and every copy of a game that I buy is now a tax deduction.

I wouldn’t trade my life for yours if you tossed a supermodel into the bargain. (Unless you’re Manny Ramirez, in which case we’ll talk, just as soon as I learn to hit a curveball.)

There is a common theme in all of the coverage I’ve seen.  Reactions in Europe, the Middle East, Black America, White America, and Latin America all focus on one theme.  Hope.  There is something magical about believing in an idea.  The belief that you are truly witnessing the dawn of a new day.

Barack Obama captured the moment very well in his victory speech.  Even John McCain recognized the moment and delivered one of the warmest speeches of his campaign.  There were celebrations as far away as Kenya.  I saw blacks, whites, latinos, men, women, young and old all eagerly showing hope that today was a new day in this country.

Tomorrow morning, nothing will change.  The same issues that existed yesterday will exist tomorrow.  However, the first step to fixing it is believing that you can fix it.  Today, I saw a country believe in itself once again.

President Obama has a lot of work ahead of him if he is going to back up that belief and turn it into action.

Good luck and congratulations Mr. President-Elect.  May your hand remain steady on the helm, and may you be the leader we can all be proud of.

Too bad.

The good news, for you, is that in two days will will get a break from the incessant political ads which are about as truthful as a 16-year old who promises to pull out in time.  The bad news is that the sniping will continue until the next election cycle begins in two years.

I’ve received plenty of responses to my last little diatribe, and rather than respond to each of them one by one, I’d like to offer a blanket response.  First, I’d like to respond to one post in particular.  How can you shoot down the concept of government subsidized health care while simultaneously advocating an arrangement shared among extended family (I believe you called it “clan”)?  You’re making the same arrangement from a smaller base.  Instead of looking at all of the United States as “your clan”,you break it down into smaller social units of people that you happen to be related to by blood.  There’s a difference?  You have no problem “chipping in” to help others, as long as they’re family.

There are two fundamental arguments at work here.  Obligation is not something that can be forced upon someone else indefinitely.  At some point an individual must accept responsibility or he will either be negligent of, or actively resistant to, that obligation.  On the other hand, living in a society is a social contract.  In accepting society’s benefits and protections (police, roads, armed forces, etc.) you implicitly agree to obey that society’s laws.  The law is not an “ala carte” menu.  You don’t get to pick and choose which laws you obey and which do not apply to you.  Law applies to all equally. (at least, in theory)

The question that must be answered is “Can government perform this societal function better than the individual, and would the benefit of such activity be beneficial to all?”  In a comment from Data Vortex, he includes a link to a story about a Congressman who votes to give money from the treasury to a family who is burned out by fire.  Indeed, in the story cited, it would be inappropriate for Congress to vote to give money to an individual or single family.  The story fails to pass the test of the above question.  It does not benefit everyone equally.

However, what if Congress had voted to create a trust fund that could get all families who are burned out by fire back on their feet?  What if such a fund were available to any families who needed it?  Such a concept would pass the test of “beneficial to all”, and if such a plan were possible, the government could employ the economy of scale required to make it happen.  It does not answer the practical details of such a plan, and I believe that is our greatest weakness as a government.  Too often, we pass bad ideas as law in the interest of “doing something”.  “Something”, in this case, has to be the RIGHT thing.

I would not support “Universal Health Care” if the plan is “a blank check for every medical procedure”.  Such a plan would invite waste and fraud.  I do not believe that means that there is no solution that would provide benefit to all, but I believe it is a problem that should be addressed, and soon.  I believe that promoting competition in the medical and insurance marketplaces is beneficial.  I believe that transparency in the insurance industry is a good idea.  I believe that if an individual can do better on their own that they should be encouraged to do so.

But I also believe that “Tough Shit” is not a good enough answer to those who can’t.  At some point, it is in our interests to look out for our fellow Americans.  Not on every issue, and not all the time, but at some point it makes things better for us as individuals if we make sure our neighbors are in good shape.  There is a continuum between “every man for himself” capitalism and “nanny state” socialism.  The question is where we lie on that continuum.

Some argue that government inefficiency is so endemic that the private sector can do things better in nearly every case.  Extreme Libertarian views would have every road be a toll road, every police force paid for by private citizens, and every social safety net run by a charity or other private organization.  Failure is met with the response “Tough Shit”, and to the victors go all spoils.

I’m going to tell you a different story.

I have a friend named Jay.  Jay’s son, Tyler, was born just 2 days before 9/11.  Just after Ty’s 3rd birthday, he started showing some symptoms of illness.  At first, they appeared to be allergies.  Then he started having headaches and nausea.  The next diagnosis was Bell’s Palsy.   After Jay pushed the doctors to give Tyler a CAT scan, they found a tumor on Tyler’s brain stem in June of 2005.  After surgery and more than a year’s worth of chemotherapy, Tyler was symptom free.

In order to pay the expenses associated with his medical care, Jay and his wife went deep into debt.  Insurance didn’t cover everything, and even his friends started a PayPal donation fund to help make ends meet.

When the symptoms returned later in 2007, Ty had to endure more chemotherapy and radiation treatments.   Now it wasn’t just Jay and his wife being stretched past their financial limits.  Their extended family and friends were pitching in even more money.  The community around Jay and his family went to the mat for Jay and his brave little boy.

It wasn’t enough.  Tyler Hibinger passed away last night.  He was 7 years old.

Having adequate insurance would not have saved Tyler’s life, but the crushing financial burden of this unspeakable ordeal isn’t going away just because Tyler lost his struggle.  There is no damn reason that this country and it’s people can’t get together and provide a safety net for families like Jay’s.  There is no damn reason that “We the People” can’t chip in together and provide coverage for families who need it.

“Tough Shit” is not good enough.

If my taxes have to go up a few percentage points per year in order to make sure that no more families have to face a financial burden like this in order to save their child’s life, then I’ll fuckin’ pay it and be glad I could help.  If others want to look at this and say that government is taking their money at the point of a gun, then let’s tell them “Tough Shit” and see how they like it!

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Our Union is pretty fucking far from perfect when citizens can, in good conscience, tell a family like Jay’s “Tough Shit”.  We’re doing a pretty lousy job of promoting the general welfare when we tell millions of our fellow citizens “If you get sick, you’re on your own.”.  There are no Blessings of Liberty to a family who will be in debt for a significant part of the rest of their lives because they had to take care of a sick child.

There will come a day, and I don’t think it’s that far off, when folks look up and see no perfect Union, no Justice, no general Welfare, and precious few Blessings of Liberty.  The step after that will pretty much kill the notion of domestic Tranquility.

If we are the nation that we all say that we are, it is time to step up, pitch in, make sure your friends and neighbors aren’t left to the tender mercies of Social Darwinism and come up with a solution.  Insurance companies aren’t going to do it.  Doctors and hospitals aren’t going to do it.  We have to do it as one nation, under God (or Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Insert the deity of your choice here), indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, not just those who can afford it.

R.I.P. Tyler.  Uncle Grimmy loves you.

Obviously, with such an attention grabbing headline, a little clarification is in order.  Those of you who are addicted to Minesweeper or Addictinggames.com, you can leave the room.  You play games, but you are not a gamer.  Those of you who play World of Warcraft but don’t read or post in forums, or spend your out-of-game time reading blogs and information sites, you can leave the room.  You might be a gamer, but you have perspective, and this rant isn’t about you.

I’m talking to YOU, fan boy.

I was once one of you.  I played MMOs up to 18 hours/day on weekends and 5-6 hours/night during the week.  Sure, I had a job, but it was the kind of job where I could follow forums and informational websites while I worked.   Fast forward a few years, and while I write a gaming column, run 2 gaming websites, direct a gaming track for Dragon*Con, and still find time to remain subscribed to 4 different MMOs, I have a job, a wife, and a kid who all rank higher on my list of “important things in life.”  In short, I have perspective.

You see?  I love gaming.  It is a hobby that I am passionate about.  I enjoy any new game that comes out if only for a brief time because it is a much more interactive form of entertainment than a tv show or a book.  I appreciate the time and effort it takes to create a game.  The only real annoyance I have with games are the hardcore gamers who spend all their time whining and bitching about how this game isn’t good enough or that game sucks, or why cant developers just listen to them and change their games to the player’s satisfaction.

If you don’t like it, don’t play.  If you don’t like a TV show, change the channel.  If you don’t like a book, put it down.  Your personal preferences are not sufficient reason to vent spleen in a public forum.  Nobody cares, least of all me.  I realize the inherent hypocrisy of this statement.  Here I am, bitching in a “public” place about my personal distastes.  The difference is, this is “my house”, so to speak.  I’m not going to the World of Warcraft forums to vent.  I’m not stepping into someone else’s home and shitting on the floor.

When in a public forum, try to contribute something to the larger discussion.  If you have a problem with a game, provide some details and ask for an explanation.

“I’ve noticed that mages in World of Warcraft don’t seem to be able to keep up with other classes in terms of damage.  Why is that?”

Provoke discussion, gather information, maybe you’ll learn something that improves your experience and can serve as a guide to someone else who might have the same issue.  That is what public forums are for.  Unfortunately, what you find more often is along the lines of:

“ZOMG! This game is teh sux!11eleventyONE!”

Thanks for your contribution to the world’s store of information, you fucking chuzzlewit.  The only thing more obnoxious than gamers who don’t know any better, are gamers who realize exactly what they’re doing.  Call them trolls, call them flame-bait, call them “attention starved babies whose mommies didn’t love them enough”.  If you are new to the Internet and need a guide to etiquette, I’ll make it simple for you.  If you wouldn’t say it to someone while standing in the same room with them, don’t say it online.  The Internet is about information.  If you honestly think that you are completely anonymous, guess again.

It has been my experience that gamers, even the most obnoxiously hard core types, are much more polite in person.  When I run the MMORPG events at Dragon*Con every year, the people are friendly and engaging.  Even the ones who complain are persuasive in their arguments and are just looking for answers.  If I had a choice between running a convention every month or running an online forum, there’s no contest.  Everyone has a story, and it is a genuine pleasure to meet folks who have the same interests and passions that I do.

So why then do forums not give people the same experience?  Everyone is there for the same reason.  Everyone has at least one thing in common.  It is because forum administrators, in the name of “giving everyone a voice” do not hold forum posters accountable for their words.  On my own forums, I am notorious for being quick with the “ban hammer”.  If a new poster comes around and starts flaming or trolling, I let the regulars have a little fun with him, then ban the new guy without a second thought.  Fair? No.  Free speech? Nope.  If you want to complain and be a pest, go do it somewhere else.

That said, I believe that everyone DOES have the right to make their opinions heard.  You have the right to say the most shocking and offensive things that pop into that little pea-sized brain of yours.  You just don’t have the right to say it on my server or by using my bandwidth.  Philosophically, it is a position that I wish more gaming websites would adopt.  Lock out the ‘tards.  Silence the morons.  Improve the signal-to-noise ratio of your forums and blogs until they again become useful repositories of information and commentary.

I honestly believe that communication in the Internet age has become unpersonal and almost psychopathic in it’s disregard for the sensibilities of the person on the other end.  As I said before, if you wouldn’t say it while standing in front of someone, don’t say it to them on the Internet.

That said, I spent most of my adult life as a political conservative.  I believed that a government that governs least, governs best.  Unlike many of my southern brethren (and sistren), I didn’t give a rat’s ass about the “Religious Right” or other elements of the Republican party that differed from my own philosophy of “government has no business in my business”.

Then, one day, I woke up and the religious kooks took over the asylum.  Dubya was out there doing his best “guns, gawd, and gub’mint” routine, and there was no place in the Republican party for a guy who just wanted to be left alone to live his life his own way.  I couldn’t go with the Democrats because they were the party of “liberal college kids, poor people, Yankees, and Ted Kennedy”.  I really didn’t care what they had to offer, which is fortunate because they had very little to offer except opposition to Bush.

In 2004, I held my nose as I voted for John Kerry.  I wasn’t voting for him as much as I was voting “no” on 4 more years of Dubya-nomics.  John Kerry is about as inspiring as a pep talk from Ben Stein.  I was dreading 2008 because I assumed that it would be the coronation of Hillary Clinton, and like most other southerners, I believed that she was one step away from the Antichrist himself.

A funny thing happened on the way to her coronation.

I started paying attention to some of the rhetoric coming from the Democrats.  I started hearing words like “middle class tax cut” and “balanced budget”.  Instead of the “I’d like to teach the world to sing” foreign policy stances of Liberals past, I was hearing “We’ve got to go into Afghanistan and Pakistan and get Osama bin Laden”.  I was hearing criticism of the Iraq war, not because they were defeatist, or pacifist, but because our government was going after the wrong guy.  Meanwhile, our “Conservative” administration was promoting things like the Patriot Act, and engaging in a systematic erosion of rights, civil and otherwise, in the name of some nebulous “War of Terror”.

In all of this, I still held the belief that “Socialism is Evil”.  I was particularly fond of the canard that Socialized health care would be run with the cost-effectiveness of the military and the bedside manner of the IRS.

Then I started reading stuff like this…

One of my favorite political authors is James Carville.  When he managed Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992, he had 3 issues on the white board in his “War Room”

1. Change vs. more of the same.
2. The economy, stupid.
3. Don’t forget health care.

Sound familiar?  It’s a winning formula for any election.  If things are good, you want more of the same.  If not, go the other way.  I’ve heard that somewhere else, but I can’t remember where.

One of Carville’s most memorable phrases is one that he got from his momma.  “Tell me who you run with, and I’ll tell you who you are.”  In fact, I seem to remember stealing that phrase for something, but I can’t remember precisely what it was…

It is an article of faith in some parts of this country that Europe is a Socialist cess-pool where nobody works, and the government is nanny to a bunch of lazy malcontents.  Of course those of us who have actually spoken to a real live European know that they seem to be happy, well-adjusted, and oh-so-amused at the continuing hijinks of “Those crazy Americans”.  We work harder, for more hours and get less for it than our European friends, and yet we’re the ones turning our collective noses up at them.  While Europeans are enjoying between 4 and 6 weeks of vacation (PAID!!!) per year, many Americans don’t even take the 2 to 3 weeks per year that we receive.  Some might argue that adopting a European approach would “slow us down”, however the overall health and welfare of a society is measured in terms that go beyond mere economic output.

When you consider that much of our economic “productivity” is based on borrowing, lending, and speculation, maybe a more pragmatic, “slower” approach is in order.  Maybe re-channeling some of that economic activity directly into things that benefit all of us such as health care, or more worker-friendly labor regulations might be better for us in the long run.

Oh, by the way… Last year the European Union surpassed the United States as the largest economy in the world.  Maybe we could learn something from them.

• Since when do Liberals have a monopoly on “Big Government”?  The last Liberal President ran a budget surplus.  The current Conservative President is running record deficits.  Liberals might be guilty of “tax and spend” on occasion, but that is preferable to “tax cut and spend”.  When the time comes, and we have to pay off this debt, it’s going to be ugly.

• Candidates who deliberately misstate issues in order to score easy points with voters are one of the biggest problems we have in Government.  Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate for US Senate here in Georgia, is calling the Fair Tax “a 23% national sales tax” without mentioning that it completely eliminates Income Tax, Estate Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and half a dozen other taxes.  I voted Democrat in more than a few races this year, but this one ad was enough for me to vote for Saxby Chambliss, who sponsored the Fair Tax in the Senate.

• Thanks to Barack Obama, I am now forced to root for the Phillies to win the World Series in 5 games.  He’s gonna get killed in the polls if he winds up pushing back the start of game 6 just so he can blanket the airwaves with a 30 minute speech.  Does he really think that voters in Pennsylvania and Florida (two states that are very much “in play” this year) are going to want to hear him talk instead of watching their teams in the Fall Classic?  I don’t care how important the election is to you, you have to understand the audience, and the audience just wants to watch the damn game.  Would it really have killed Obama to schedule his speech half an hour earlier or, even better, on the day before? (travel day for both teams)

• Thank you, Penn State, for making sure that Ohio State will not be in the BCS Championship Game for the third year running.  If only you could do something about USC.

• Please, mighty gods of college football, do something about Alabama and Georgia.  Maybe let Auburn bring back a half dozen NFL alumni for a game or two?

• Wrath of the Lich King drops on November 13.  Don’t expect me to be social, coherent, or even willing to leave the house that weekend.  I’ll still be writing, but it will be for that other blog. (You know… the one I get paid to write?)

I got a note from a friend of mine recently.  Josh and I go way back.  We went to college together, we drank together, we worked together.  I was fortunate enough to meet his family on multiple occasions, and we have both stood as groomsmen at each of our respective weddings.

We’re tight, in other words.

In the course of the 15 or 16 years that we have known each other, we developed little in-jokes that we could make at each other’s expense, knowing that nobody else in the world might find it funny, but we would.  Whether it was me losing my temper at a movie theater and throwing a full large coke at his feet, (or him bringing that story up at the most awkward possible time), or my making jokes about dating his little sister which would cause him to come as close to physical violence as anything else in this world. (for a doubly ironic twist, I’m twice his size… literally)  Josh has one of the most biting senses of humor that I’ve ever known, and a total lack of fear with respect to timing and audience.  He’d make a killer stand-up comic.

I tell you all of this because Josh wrote to me about a robbery in New Orleans.  A couple of punks went into a bakery and held the place up at gunpoint.   An off-duty police officer shot one of the teenagers twice in the chest while the other robber fled the scene.  As the wounded thug was falling, he started spraying bullets all over the place.  Thankfully, nobody else was hurt, but what really chilled me to the bone was reading the name of the Bakery’s owner.

Josh’s little sister.

Hillary Guttman and I have spoken maybe a dozen words to one another in all of the decade and a half that Josh and I have been friends.  However, I am extremely proud of her reaction to the botched robbery that could have very easily ended her life.  She didn’t “play the victim” or crawl into a shell out of fear. No, she kept her head high and dealt with the aftermath of a very dangerous situation with nerve and humor.

Gunshot Cookies

She patched up all of the bullet holes with little cutout hearts because she was thankful that those bullets only hit furniture and not people.

If you are ever in New Orleans and have the opportunity, stop by the Laurel Street Bakery (5433 Laurel St., 897-0576) and buy something, a muffin, a cookie, just something.  Folks like Hillary need to know that there are people in this world who admire them and are rooting for them.

As for the robbers, I can only hope that Darwin does his job on these two slowly and painfully.

For those of you who didn’t listen to Metallica before 1991′s “Black Album”, I would like to show you a couple of clips and let you make up your own mind.

First, a song from the “Black Album”…

Now let’s go back in time a decade or so…

That theory about aliens is starting to make more and more sense…

Absolutely!  Halloween is fun.  Halloween results in sweet candy goodness.  Haloween teaches kids to worship the devil and believe in ghosts and demons.

*sound of a record needle scratching*

Are you freakin’ serious?

While the link above, from Pat Robertson’s Klan of Kooky Kristians,  does mention the pagan origins of the holiday.  It perpetuates the myth that Samhain is some sort of “God of the Dead”.  No, pagans do not run around worshiping some ooky-spooky death god.  Samhain represents the end of Summer and is closer in meaning to the Celtic New Year.

As far as the whole “worshipping the dead” thing is concerned…

“Wiccans as a time to celebrate the lives of those who have passed on, and it often involves paying respect to ancestors, family members, elders of the faith, friends, pets and other loved ones who have died. In some rituals the spirits of the departed are invited to attend the festivities.”

In other words, it’s a party.  Have fun.

Yeah, that’s a dangerous message to send our children…

• 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
• 4GB RAM
• 320GB Hard drive
• 17 inch display with an NVidia 8600M GPU. (1920×1200 native resolution)
• 802.11 a/b/g/n wireless
• Comes with a bunch of goodies installed including Boot Camp.
• Backlit keyboard
• Glass, buttonless touchpad.  Supports multi-finger gestures ala iPhone.

2700 bucks.

You can’t get a better laptop for twice the money.  This will be my next rig, it’s just a question of when.

Except for…

As you might have guessed by now, I’m backing Barack Obama in this year’s presidential election.  If this surprises you, I would invite you to click on the Politics category and ready pretty much anything you find there.  While I knew, intellectually, that Alabama was “Red State” country and largely in support of John McCain, I really didn’t understand, in my gut, what that meant until I went to the game on Saturday.

Maybe you’ve heard those stories about people at McCain rallies who say that Obama is ‘an Arab’ and dismiss them as the rantings of scattered morons in a sea of otherwise rational human beings.  I talked to more than a few McCain supporters at the game (a local politician was giving out McCain/Palin stickers, and nearly everyone in the crowd of over 80,000 people had one on), and ‘Arab’ is only the first in an alphabetical list of things I heard Obama called this weekend.

• Arab
• Communist
• Foreigner
• Mohammedan
• Muslim
• The “N-bomb”
• Non-Christian
• Socialist
• Un-American
• Uppity

I heard more than one person state flatly that although they knew nothing about Obama’s policies, they would vote for McCain because they didn’t want a black man in the White House.  I honestly thought we were past this kind of thing as a nation.  These weren’t “Bubbas” wearing overalls and driving pickup trucks.  These were men and women whose only distinguishing superficial characteristics from an otherwise intelligent human being was an eastern Alabama accent.  These were doctors and lawyers and otherwise educated men and women saying things like “Obama should know his place” and “I won’t vote for any Muslim.”

To be fair, not every person wearing a McCain/Failin’ sticker was racially motivated.  I heard folks talk about how Obama was going to raise taxes for them despite the fact that none of the people who voiced this fear were in a tax bracket affected adversely by Obama’s economic plan.  I heard folks talk about how Obama was going to make the US weaker even though the current President has done more to damage the United States around the world than any President in my lifetime and McCain’s plan is to continue those policies.

I don’t know what scared me more.  The fact that they didn’t know any better? or the fact that the information is so easy to find, yet they don’t care enough to look for it.  In a way, it is a testament to the power of the Conservative Christian movement in the south.  I saw very little curiosity and a great deal of lock-step dogmatism masquerading as intelligent thought.  Having lived in the south for my entire life, I know for a fact that not everyone falls into that stereotype, but seeing such a large number of those people in one place was a bit frightening.  Those votes count just as much as mine does, and they put as much thought into who will be the most powerful leader in the world as I might put into which football game I’m going to watch next weekend.

That said, I recently read a column from him that chilled me to the bone.

You see, like many others, I’ve dealt with the death of a parent from a long and debilitating disease.  I’ve been there and done that, and if watching a family member die isn’t hell itself, then it’s at least a suburb.  I watched the toughest sonofabitch in the known universe (my dad) say “Enough.  No more.  I want to die.”

But oh no, he didn’t get to choose the hour or day.  He didn’t get to go out on his own terms.  He fought for as long as his will could hold out and reached the breaking point.  Is that dignity?  Sure.  He fought with everything he could until he couldn’t fight any more.  I can think of no finer epitaph for a man than that.  However, when the fight was done, Cancer wasn’t.

His body wasted away to less than half of his “healthy weight”.  A man who, just 3 days before he died, helped his son lift a 500 pound slab of concrete and move it into place in the back yard.  A man who, on the last day he would ever see his son, got out of his death bed, walked to the living room and said “Gimme my fuckin’ hearing aid, I want to talk to my son.”  A man whose greatest fear was not death, but becoming so infirm that he would soil himself and be embarrassed in front of his family.  The same man who refused to tell his son that the cancer had spread from his lungs to his brain because he didn’t want to be a downer at his son’s wedding.  The same man whose last words to me were “I love you, son.  I’ll see you next weekend.”

He said “Let me go.  It’s time.  I give up.”

When he lost the ability to speak and spent his last 48 hours unconscious with a temperature of nearly 104 degrees, there was no need for the suffering to continue.  There was no possibility of recovery, or even regaining consciousness.  Instead, he laid there while the hospice nurses were powerless to do anything but watch.

Lawmakers who vote against legalizing assisted suicide apparently want you to have this experience too.  There are precious few things in this world that an individual can control.  I would like to say that I cannot imagine the kind of pain that would cause me to choose to end my own life, but I couldn’t imagine it for my dad, and I saw it happen anyway.  Your life.  Your body.  Your choice.

Do you think Terri Schiavo wanted to be remembered like this?

or like this?

Simple respect for your fellow man dictates that we respect the wishes and the dignity of the dying.  If a person chooses to die peacefully rather than suffer the pain and indignity of a lingering death, then what right do we have to deny him that?

As some of you may know, my “day job” as a writer is a column called Ask Massively over at Massively.com.  In it, I take questions from all comers about issues that matter to MMO players.  I have heard comments from some friends and family along the lines of “I don’t know what an MMORPG is and I don’t understand half of what you’re talking about, but I liked your column.”

Forgive me for laughing a little.  It’s hard to remember what it was like not being a gamer because I’ve been one for most of my life.

That brings me to the topic at hand.  I haven’t exactly been burning up the Internet lately with my game play.  I’m subscribed to 3 games, down from 6, but I haven’t had much time to play lately.  Part of the reason (ok, the biggest part, by far) is my new daughter Samantha.  The other major reason is the upcoming expansion to World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King, which goes live on November 13.  I have been toying with the idea of picking up Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning but I don’t know if I will have time to give the game a fair shake once Lich King goes live.

Those of you who aren’t gamers, let me see if I can put this question in perspective for you.  If you are a sports fan who likes both hockey and football and your favorite out-of-town teams are both playing in your town on the same day.  Which game do you go see?   An MMORPG is an odd mix of entertainment concepts.  In one respect, a game is like an interactive television show or movie.  You tune in (or log on) and become the main character in your own story.  The other characters (players) are your co-stars, and nobody knows how the story ends.  In another way, playing an MMO is like going to a theme party.  Your friends are all there, you have a common task or goal, and there will be plenty of stories to tell afterwards.  The term virtual world is overused these days, but it really is the most accurate description of the genre.

So with a limited budget of available free time, how do you pick the virtual world that you want to inhabit?  Do you go with something new and exciting? Or do you stay where you are established and comfortable?

Not when the Red Sox are going for the jugular in game 4, they don’t.

It amused me to no end to hear the announcers try to work in the phrase “The ground cannot cause a fumble” on a rundown play in the 9th inning.  I know that football has passed our former national pastime in terms of popularity, but playoffs are playoffs.  The idea that someone might not be playing another game this season is even enough for me not to immediately hit the remote button when I accidentally come across a WNBA game. (I’d rather watch Nascar than “below the rim” hoops… and “Left Turning for Dollars” isn’t exactly burning up my Tivo, know what I’m saying?)

13 years later, the freakshow is over.  OJ is going to jail, and unless I miss my guess, he’s not coming out unless it is in a coffin.  Unlike many folks, I do not take it as an article of faith that OJ killed his ex-wife and Ron Goldman.  My problem stems from the fact that this sellout has been acting like a jerk who got away with murder.  The confessional book “If I Did It“, “Juiced” and his attempts to “find the real killers” on nearly every golf course in the state of Florida scream of bad taste.  At least now, this jerk will not be in the public eye anymore.

Hope your knees are in good shape, Juice.  You’re going to be on them an awful lot.

In the beginning, there was a television commercial. The commercial was for some sports-related product (I couldn’t remember which one, thought it was Gatorade, turned out to be Nike. FAIL at effective advertising.) which had this really bumpin’ song. Didn’t know the title or artist, but I heard just enough of it to do a search on the ‘net using the lyrics.

As it turns out, the song is called “List of Demands” by an artist named Saul Williams.  In additon to having a very elegantly designed website, it seems that Mr. Williams has some philosophical values that resonate with my own to an extent.  He distributes his own music on the Internet, using a business model that encourages listeners to try his music, and support him financially by paying for a higher quality version of his music online.  He’s not adverse to making a buck through his music (after all, I’m guessing that Nike paid a buck or two in order to use his music in that commercial), but it’s about the art, not the dollar.

So far, so good, right?

Well another issue that is near and dear to my heart is Scientology.  If you want to read a hack science fiction writer who was drug-addled enough to invent his own religion and charge the marks his followers for it, fine by me.  However, if I were the supreme deity of the universe for just one day, I would only have one commandment.

Thou shalt not subvert the will of another.

Let me be clear.  This does not mean that I support anarchy.  I believe that government is a necessary evil, but I also believe that people have the right to choose who governs them.  I believe that there are consequences for your choices in life and while you cannot choose consequences, you have the absolute right to make a choice for yourself.

Apparently, the Church of Scientology is incompatible with my belief system.

When you get into the business of deciding how someone else lives their life, especially when your reasoning involved religion or “for their own good”, I believe that you have crossed the line from good to evil.  Apparently, I am not alone.  While I will neither confirm, nor deny, any involvement with the “organization” known as Anonymous, I am certainly sympathetic to its cause.

“Grim?”, you ask…

“What does Saul Williams have to do with the anti-Scientology movement?”

I’m glad you asked.  In the course of my wanderings on YouTube take a look at what I found.

I think that’s what they mean by “Synergy”…

“Knowledge is free.

We are Anonymous.

We are Legion.

We do not forgive.

We do not forget.

Expect us.”

-Anonymous

Ok, so my friend Dave over at Certified Sound is into “kink”.  That’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about someone you may never meet in person, but the guy DOES blog and podcast about it, so it is somewhat topical.

I was taking a look at his blog where he talks about bondage in comics (ooh, Wonder Woman and the golden lariat… never saw THAT one coming…) and some dialog from one of the panels caused me to make the “WTF? face”

To wit:

I’m sorry, for a minute there, I thought it said “The only real happiness for anybody is to be found in obedience to loving authority”. That couldn’t be…

What’s that, you say?  It DID say that?

(Are you listening, voters of America?  There is a message in there for you if you look really hard.)

Don’t think, don’t question, do as you’re told.  Great advice…for a 4 year old.

Unlike my work on other blogs, expect this to be fairly uncensored and not-so-fairly vulgar.  I won’t pretend to be unbiased or occasionally narcissistic, but hopefully I’ll be able to massage my ego while entertaining you at the same time.

More to come.

-Grim