Defiant Garbage Collectors

Every wednesday morning, garbage collectors come by my house. I assume they come to collect garbage. Seems only logical. 

Well, last week they came by our street and picked up all the garbage from every house...except our house. Why? Well, I figured that it was some technicality. Perhaps we had too many trash cans or something. Or, maybe we didn't roll them out far enough into the street for their passage to be obstructed enough not to ignore. Or, maybe the fact that we filled each can with 300 pounds of lead, and a family of rats. But no, I think what happened was much more malicious.

They are haters. They didn't like our trash. And they don't like us. They were making a statement. Well, we're going to get them back. First, we called up their supervisors. Yeah, we're tattlers. And, when they come back, we'll have a post-halloween surprise waiting for them. A few dead bodies!!! That'll learn 'em (you love my grammatical correctness).

Halloween Laziness.

Call me lazy, but this halloween I am just giving you a link to an article my friend Scott Spjut (satire correspondent for ABC)  wrote. It tells what all the political candidates are going to dress up as tonight. Here it is:

This is the link to the article.

Here are some photos to enjoy that I put up with my halloween party event on facebook:

...

You should be ashamed.

Scooby-rooby-roo!

Yes, your girl friend does look like a chubby little boy.

This is for my friend Nicole who hates cats.

I always knew Paris was a zombie maid.

Oh shi...

What a great dracula costume!

I'm a lego block.

You better cover your face.

Alien! Those parents are just messed up.

I thought this was Owen Wilson at first. Nope, just ambiguous in relation to his sexuality.

Oh no! Your head is being eaten by Hello Kitty!

This dog makes me laugh, but also makes me sad inside.

This dog makes me hungry.

Dumb.

Hey, that's a little tight, could you ease up a little?

Meh.

Charming. Really.

You have no friends.

Look! You can be a douchebag for halloween!

This dog is actually a rat.

Buzz, where's your ambiguously gay friend?

Nacho!!

Nice. Shaggy is stoned. Typical.

Awww.

You suck.

Um...random fish...this is what we eat on halloween....I guess...

The thinker. Silverback gorilla style.

Okapi's have long tongues...and they will be at the party.

Upset at Presidential Campaigns and plugging myself.

This Presidential election season has not inspired me. I suppose it's not obligated to do so, but I would even go so far as to say I am beyond fatigued at this point, and indeed disappointed. The methods employed by both campaigns were shoddy and only they only feigned accountability and decency from time to time. The press pretty much shot itself in the foot with its fiendish diagnosis of one side, while almost entirely ignoring anything even remotely detrimental from the other. I believe in tough journalism, but it needs to be equally tough and effacing for both parties. Our press has become so sensationalized and subjective it has caused an uproar among its own. 

Here's a great article on it from ABC news columnist Michael S. Malone.

That being said, I will be glad on November 5th. I will be able to write about other things. I will be able to write about defiant garbage collectors, toothpaste, writer's block, provo dating scenes, manly men, global cooling, cranberries, eco-cars, wo-men, girlfriends, new housing market options, potatoes, the Chinese, taking naps, etc., etc., etc.

Yes, I just plugged my own blog. And, I'm patting myself on the back now. Thank you. 

I am Victorious.

VICTORY! Well, for now at least. Here's the breakdown of my day.

7:00am - Woke up

7:30am - Woke up

8:00am - Woke up (for real)

8:02am - Wanted to take a shower but couldn't, someone was in there

8:05am - Dressed and finished French shower (smelling like roses, but still being as filthy as the Seine River)

8:06-8:45am - Intermittent reading for 9 o'clock class, as well as reading of todays news and eating random stuff and halloween candy

8:45am - Walked to class

9:00am - Got to class just as the bell rang

9:00am-9:50am - Tried to stay awake in class. Started off great for the first 10 minutes (Being close to the front didn't help)

10:00isham - Got home with intention to nap until noon, but got distracted by life

10:45am-12:05pm - Sort of napped, yelled at a showering brother listening to Phish, put on headphones and listened to ambient sounds and the ocean.

12:06pm - Ate some ham, cheese and spinach tortilla sandwiches. Washed them down with milk

12:35pm - nowish - Wrote a ridiculously long paper for a class midterm with interruptions (friends, emails, facebook, this blog, etc.)

Current Time: 5:48pm - VICTORY. Well, for now.

Homework left to do: Shoot myself.

Papers, Papers, Everywhere!

I've been writing too much lately. But, it's really not going to stop any time soon. I've written a big chunky delicious paper each of the past two days (and I should have written two yesterday, but I didn't) and I have another paper twice as big to write for Thursday. I'm a bit light-headed from staring at my computer screen, not getting decent sleep, and some weird bug that's going around.

But who cares! I already wrote a post about how inebriation has helped some artists create better art. So maybe the same goes for me....I lkmef rn.kv krn.kv....pokpwd?.........l;;;;;;;;ytffffffffffffffffffgtrdcrttttttttdxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Ok. Perhaps not.

And who drooled on my keyboard?

Living our dreams

I live my own dreams.

It's perhaps just the luck of the draw. Some are destined to dream their dreams and only dream of living them. There are also those who dream real dreams, believe they are but dreams, soften the edges of those dreams, and chase the shadow. Then there are those who live them.

We all dream.

We cannot avoid it, and even if you believe you do not, you're only deceiving yourself. When you wake up from a dream and can't remember it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Even if all you remember is closing your eyes and waking up, you dreamt while sleeping. However, when we dream, our conscious mind and subconscious mind synthesize a fantastic world of abject horror and unfathomable jubilation. The real world (or what we would like to believe is real) is a muddling in between those two extremes. But it is with the help of this muddle that we are able to see the extremes. Our dreams are a composition of the glorified muddle.

But it is that composite that gives us hope. Perhaps not a particular subconscious REM romp, but our hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They come from within us and without us. They give us something to strive for. Something that we might become, or attain. And, we must give them life. We cannot allow them to remain mystical mental illusions. We must live them.

It's something that I've done all my life. Of course there have been exceptions, but on the whole, if I have a dream, or aspiration, I put myself to work to attain it. If I want to sing a duet for someone's wedding, I do it. If I want to write a great philosophic work, I do it. If I want to travel the world, I do it. Sitting on my hands was never an option. It allows a meaningless reality to consume me. Our reality does not have to be meaningless, and we can consume it.

Live your dreams.

My yard, the bird sanctuary.

The lawn in front of my house is not in the best of shape. It's mostly weeds, with a select patch of grass. It is also slightly balding. But this was not always the case. It used to be lush. Lush with dandelions, clover, crabgrass, and stuff that resembled grass but wasn't. Well, the owner didn't want that, so she had the maintenance guy put down some weed killer/fertilizer. Now if there's anything I've learned from being a landscaper, it's that it's either one or the other. And, unfortunately for our lawn, it did more killing than fertilizing. But, even after our front yard was made a barren wasteland (or so it seemed), it has been home to many animals.

Most notably of these is a flock of sparrows. I see them almost everyday, pecking at the grass eating something (I hope for their sake it's not the killer/fertilizer pellets), but I really don't know. And we've had a family of quail, as well as a pair of ducks live in our yard. So, I suppose you might say we run a bird sanctuary. And, we even had a rehabilitation case. We named him Bill.

Bill had a bum wing. So he usually didn't stray too far from the porch. I'd throw him sunflower seeds, rice, and random birdish food items, and he seemed pretty appreciative as he gimped around the yard. But quite often I would be inside, typing away on the computer, or reading a book and I left the door open. Well, it didn't take too long for Bill to decide he liked it better inside the house. I would sit there, my computer on my lap, and then, out of the corner of my eye I'd see this little brown smudge hopping on the carpet. It was Bill.

This went on for some time. Almost everyday Bill would come on by, eating random stuff off of the carpet and then I'd bid him adieu. Then, came that fateful Saturday. I left the house to go hang out with some friends, and I left the door open, thinking it would do little harm as my brother and other room mate were home. Later on, as I was in the middle of something cool I got a phone call from my good friend and neighbor. It was a somewhat unexpected call, but so was the news. He said my kitchen was full of birds, and that they were hopping around and leaving little bird presents wherever they went. Before responding, I knew in my gut it was Bill. Bill had taken advantage of my good nature. How could you Bill? You look all gimpy and innocent, and then when I throw you a bone you ransack my house with your bird friends. Disappointed doesn't describe it. I felt betrayed.

My door is now closed.

Engaged people and ridiculous pronouncements

Having been through the whole "engaged thing," and having heard advice from every qualified individual I know, as well as being in a marriage prep class at school, I find it interesting how newly engaged couples (and particularly the girl) will say things like, "I've met the perfect man." Or, "How lucky I am to be married to a guy who's perfect in every way." Or something to that effect. They put those kind of phrases in their facebook statuses, paint them on their car windows, or gloat about it to their friends.

What ever happened to that very appropriate phrase that goes something like this: Before marriage keep your eyes wide open, and after marriage keep them half shut? Honestly, that euphoric puppy dog love phase can dupe you if you're not careful. You shouldn't just fall in love with your heart, and your eyes, or even just your soul. You need to fall in love with your brain too. If you think your partner is perfect already, you're probably drinking too much nyquil, or have only been in abusive relationships.

Perhaps you have met a great guy or gal. But they have faults. And, they may seem easy to overcome now because you aren't really together. You're just dating. There's no civil mandate that joins you. But, I guarantee that even the simplest of things can and will become big issues if you don't address them now. So just remember that self-induced delirium doesn't produce the best matches. Use your brain. And open your eyes. And, after that, God Bless.

Happy Halloween...from the democrats!

I love halloween. But let's be honest, it's a self-indulgent, barbaric holiday, with roots in dark pagan rituals and false conceptions of life and death. We gorge ourselves in candy and for at least a day dress up as something we're not to get a rise out of our stiff friends or to become less stiff ourselves. But, in my belief, those reasons encourage me to like halloween. A little self-indulgent sugar high and waking up with your head inside a kettle full of popcorn lying next to a pink fairy on one side and a zombie amazon on the other is what its all about. But some people want to take our animalism away from us:

Tasers don't work on raccoons.

This is a legitimate news story that I had to share. You'll learn things. Important things that will help you later in life:

Raccoon unfazed by cop's Taser during wild chase

Oct 23, 3:40 PM (ET)

DALLAS (AP) - Police learned something during a frenetic burglary call to an elderly couple's home: Tasers don't work on raccoons. Police arrived with guns drawn after receiving a 911 call from an 85-year-old man who heard noises near his front door Tuesday night. Officers surrounded the house but pretty quickly - in the words of the police report - "determined the suspect was a raccoon."

In the meantime, the masked burglar apparently made its way into the house through the chimney. And that's when things got really interesting.

With officers in pursuit, the raccoon took off through the house, ripping up Venetian blinds, pulling down drapes, knocking over a lamp and toppling a flowerpot. Finally, Officer Daniel Ek tried to let it out the back door when the suspect apparently turned threatening.

"While unlocking the back door, the suspect ran at Officer Ek," the police report says.
Ek used his taser, but the raccoon ran up the chimney with the stun gun's prongs in its back. An animal control officer tried unsuccessfully to flush it out with ammonia, homeowner Bill Hyde said in Thursday's editions of The Dallas Morning News.

A neighbor helped secure the front of the fireplace to keep the raccoon from returning. The next morning, when the neighbor returned to put a cap on the chimney, the raccoon had escaped.
"He got away clean," Hyde said.