photochromism

sometimes i can be a chameleon. blending in and smiling/nodding just helps get you through some situations. a survival technique.

people mistakenly assume i agree with them just because i don't argue with them. they also fail to notice that i'm not agreeing with them either. 

anyhow. the point is: if you want freedom of speech for one, you kind of need to give it to all. and also: people do make choices in life. furthermore: history repeats itself constantly and consistently. 

many of us are just trying to pay the bills. i'm sure we'd all appreciate it if we made it a bit less difficult for each other in the process.

oh yes. i don't were sunglasses.

Languishing in Listlessness

I really wanted to post here a little more often than never....such grand aspirations have I.

I've been experimenting with ways to strip expenses down to a bare minimum. Not that I'm an extravagant spender--kind of hard to be if you don't have it to spend in the first place. But still, I'd like to be able to save some money since my pets won't be around to take care of me when I'm too old to take care of myself. Which is getting more and more difficult these days as prices for the basics keep rising. I suppose supporting multiple people and animals on one paltry income doesn't help either.

Seen the price of gold lately? Silver's back up too. If I had the cash flow now, I'd be stocking up on some metal. That's a different type of saving.

I've been reducing my personal amount of food purchasing and intake. I've never been a breakfast eater, so I've always saved there. Trying to keep lunch under a dollar. I was feeling extravagant one day and spent 3 dollars. Dinner is normally shared, so it ends up being thrifty enough. Anyway, the result is I've spent a few weeks feeling pretty hungry. You'd think I'd be used to it by now. 

To some degree, I feel I've hit an early "midlife" crisis. Feel like I've been in it for a while too. By this point, I would have expected some sort of return on all this investment I've put into life. I feel like instead life has just ransacked the vault and run away with everything I had in me.

I think the worst part might be that I've stopped dreaming. I used to vividly dream most every night. Maybe I'm not getting enough REM sleep. I find it disheartening.

No, I take that thought back. The worst part is that my one friend in the world has stopped listening.

slipstream spinning (again)

i've been thinking a lot about the slipstream of life lately. and death following a hair too closely. and the disparity between each person's rowboat.

i read that "slipstream" also refers to a genre of fiction, at least since 1989. "the fiction of strangeness." writings that deal with an element of the surreal or are heavy with cognitive dissonance. but really i have to wonder if that's not exactly what life is like here on earth. strange and surreal and full of contradicting beliefs causing all sorts of unpleasant feelings.

my rowboat got stuck in a bunch of reeds. when i hacked my way out of those it promptly got sucked into a whirlpool. it's hard to focus when your head is spinning.

"...and you paddle right out of the mess..."

Nothing to Brag About

So I don't catch a lot of commercials anymore, but I've seen this one ad twice now for Burlington Coat Factory that I pretty much deplore. You can watch it here if you haven't seen it already. Apparently it's for their new slogan "brag about it." Whatever.

Basically, the point of the commercial is this snooty women with a French accent is a little too pretentious  about being able to speak four languages fluently and needs to be put in her place. The other women is proud as well, but "rightly" so, to have gotten a great deal on four dresses at Burlington Coat Factory. Obviously by her expression, she knows she is the better person because she got that totally awesome deal. She's the one you're supposed to connect with and like of course. 'Cause getting four dresses for $50 is SOOOOOO much cooler than being able to communicate in four different languages. 

I love language, so maybe I'm a bit biased. But it's truly ridiculous that we American English speakers are not taught other languages until it's past the age when it would be easiest to begin learning. It's also just generally not encouraged. I think every person I've ever met from another country can speak at least two languages (yes, English is one of those), but often it's 3, 4, 5 languages!!! 

How did we develop the attitude in this country that learning another language is not worth our time and effort, that it's a burdensome chore? Why wouldn't one want to be able to communicate with people in their native tongue? I guess we're lazy since English is more or less a language of international business and so many people from other countries have at least a basic understanding of it.

My uncles/aunts/cousins used to make fun of me as a kid for learning/practicing other languages at holiday get-togethers. They would find that commercial amusing and that makes me just a little bit sad. 

If you really want to "parlez-vous good deal," you should try your local thrift store. I could get four dresses for about $10 bucks. So there, Burlington Coat Factory. Va te faire enculer.

Post Office Blues

I've used that title before a long time ago, but I've got them again, the post office blues. <harmonica solo>

So almost a month after my request for a copy of the signature that I paid the post office to receive (signature confirmation), I finally get a response!

That is, a letter from USPS regretfully informing me that they can find no record of that item. Thankfully I know it got there, as I received a refund for the item I was returning, but come on USPS! What gives?

 Where I work, we receive a lot of mail....a lot. And I get to send a lot of mail too. I have to say that once one of the mail sorting centers in my state closed down a year ago or so, the quality of USPS's service has drastically diminished. Envelopes come with the original contents removed and other whole pieces of entirely different mail still in their own envelopes stuffed in them! Envelopes come empty too. Know a lot of people that received empty envelopes during the christmas season. Lots of mail getting lost too. Used to rarely happen, even with the amount of mail we receive/send out. But anymore, you almost have to expect it.

I guess it's a sign of the times. Cutbacks, economic depression, probably some irate postal workers....

In high school myself and a few friends wrote a play about a huge mysterious package that arrived at an apartment complex with an illegible shipping label. All the tenants came up with wild stories about how it was something for them, but it turned out just to be an empty box. A disgruntled postal worker was trying to cause some havoc. It was a pretty ridiculous play but a lot of fun too. 

Anyhoo, I really have lost a lot of faith in the postal service. There needs to be some competition for first class mail.

Funny Money

My brother sent me a link to a few years old story about a man being arrested at a Best Buy for trying to pay with $2 bills.

Try here (or alternatively, here) to read about it.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the times I've tried to spend my $2 bills. It never goes well. Even had a bank teller look at me odd once for trying to deposit them. Same goes for 50-cent pieces and $1 coins! The cashiers won't listen to you because they don't like being called out as an idiot I suppose.

Along a similar vein, Lowe's once wouldn't accept my beau's passport as photo identification to go along with his check. Funny thing is, to apply for that passport he needed his driver's license and his birth certificate. So in my world, a passport should count at least twice--a double or even triple form of ID.

I feel this post could develop into a heated rant about the state of our public "education" system, but I've got a slew of chores to do. Another time then.

DOWNSIZE DC

(I first mentioned this site back in Feb 2007. some of these campaigns are still just campaigns. COME ON PEOPLE, THERE ARE SOME WORTHY CAUSES HERE!!!)

you know, they do have a point. or two or three or four or.... and by "they" i mean "DOWNSIZEDC.ORG"

and why should we need campaigns like this? i mean, you'd think it would just be the logical sensible thing to be doing when you're drafting a bill or running a government, etc,  anyway.

things like:

• reading a bill before voting on its passage ("Read The Bills Act")
• not combining unrelated bills together ("One Subject at a Time Act")
• auditing the Fed, because it's a private organization and should follow the same laws the rest of us/other businesses follow. ("Audit the Fed") - Also see Ron Paul's own "audit the fed" campaign & his book: END THE FED. Also, while on the subject of Ron Paul, go ahead & sign this petition.
• not ignoring the constitution ("Tell Congress to Obey the Consititution")
• not strangling the small family farmer... got to repeal some of this one now. i was against a lot of this stuff when i first started hearing about it. especially the NAIS. i think corporate farms might get a fair amount of exclusions. it's a typical approach to lawmaking: penalizing the common man & making endless exceptions for the wealthy or for large business entities. ("Preserve the Freedom to Farm") 

just need to get a large number of people on the same page. is that impossible, improbable, or just unlikely?