>>>OK folks, now that I've introduced myself, let me give you the lowdown. Back at the beginning of May I started a journal. I try to update it every day, but I don't always succeed. In any event, I'll start posting the text of those entries at the rate of about five per day until I catch up to the current date. So here goes: 5-1-2004
Hello everyone!
It’s me, Eric R. Johnson, from Toledo, OH
I’ve decided to start a Journal.
I hope to make an entry everyday, but please excuse me if I miss a day or two now and then. This will not, for the most part, be a description of what’s going on in my life (although there will be some of those). It will simply be a series of brief essays on how I think life is going, a few random thoughts, and more than a few rants.
I will try to avoid politics as much as possible. I can’t guarantee you’ll never see a political discussion, though—this is an election year, after all! Besides, George W. Bush is a COMPLETE $%&*ING MORON!!!!!
Oh, that’s another thing: If you’re offended by crude language, don’t read any further! There are certain times when the occasional swearword can convey a very strong emotion far more effectively than anything else. I mean, if you stub your toe or hit your thumb with a hammer, what you DON’T say (if you’re like most people) is “Oh fiddle-dee-dee, that really stings. Gosh golly gee whiz! Son of a gun!”
What you DO say is “AAUUGGHH! SON OF A BITCH! THAT FUCKING HURTS! GODDAMMIT!”
Anyway, I thought the first day of May was a good day to start. In that regard, keep reading to gain some insight into how my brain works.
5/2/2004
I’ve been hearing so many commercials on the radio about bars that celebrate Cinco de Mayo (CDM). What the hell is up with that?
My parents are all of European descent. They’d no more have thought of celebrating CDM than the average Inuit. I don’t have a drop of Mexican blood in my body. CDM means about as much to me as Labor Day means to a sweatshop worker.
Let’s consider this for a minute. I don’t know for sure, but I THINK this is a holiday when Mexicans celebrate winning their independence from Spain. I’m pretty sure this is accomplished by drinking as much liquor as possible and then passing out face down in a puddle of vomit. That’s pretty much how we celebrate Independence Day in this country, except we add blowing our fingers off with illegal fireworks to the mix.
Why bother to celebrate CDM if you’re not Mexican, or of Mexican descent? Do the English celebrate the Fourth of July? Do the Spanish celebrate Bastille Day? Do MEXICANS celebrate the Fourth of July?
As near as I can tell, CDM is just an excuse for Americans to go out and drink. Since when did we EVER need an excuse to do that?! If you want to go out and drink during the week, then do it! Just don’t try to justify it by pretending you’re celebrating a foreign holiday that means nothing to you!
5/3/2004
I repeatedly hear news stories about the flap over electronic voting machines, and how vulnerable they are to hackers and other types of manipulation.
I cannot trust any machine that records my vote without producing a paper record of it that can be manually counted if necessary. I've voted in every elections since I was 18 and I want my vote to count! When I first decided to start this journal, I swore I would put as little as possible of politics in it—as hard as that may be for me. I cannot guarantee that that will always happen, especially when I hear that the CEO of Diebold, one of the companies bidding to produce Ohio’s voting machines, said that he is committed to delivering Ohio’s electoral votes to the president (Bush) in 2004. How, exactly? By making sure Bush’s name is the only choice that comes up on the screen?
Anyway, I trust a clearly marked paper ballot. I trust an electronic voting machine about as far as I can throw it (judging by it’s weight, I’d guess about five feet!)
5-4-2004
Hoo boy. Here we go again. Another virus. This one comes with the subject line “Important news: Osama bin Laden Captured”. It’s actually a Trojan worm that can be used by hackers to exploit systems.
I gotta wonder: What goes through the heads of people who create this stuff?
“Hey man, instead of doing something constructive with my vast computer knowledge, I think I’ll create a program that will fuck up everyone’s computer! And it doesn’t matter that I’ll never make any money off it, or that I could go to jail if I get caught—I just do it because I can!”
My personal favorite was the one that disguised itself as naked pictures of Anna Kournikova—try explaining to your significant other exactly how THAT virus got on your computer…
Personally, I’d like to take these people who create computer viruses, throw them in a deep hole, and cover them with dirt. I’m sure they’d be far more useful as fertilizer than they are doing what they do now.
5/5/2004
Today I got another e-mail rant about how much someone hates the fact that immigrants are coming over and want to change everything about our country. I mean, it’s not like anything about this country ever changed when our forefathers arriv…um, uh, well, yeah. Okay.
Seriously. Who do these people think picks the fruit and vegetables they buy in the grocery store every day? Who do they think cuts their lawns? Who do they think sells them their cigarettes? Who do they think watches their kids? Who do they think does every other crappy job that they are unable or unwilling to do?
It’s apparently fine to employ immigrants, or buy things from them. Just don’t let them think they deserve to have a few rights for themselves. Unless, of course, they are famous actors who speak with a thick Austrian accent…
If you want to send them all back home, fine. Just be prepared to do a lot more work! Personally, I’d love to see Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh out picking vegetables in a field somewhere. They’d be contributing a lot more to our society by doing that than they do in their current jobs.
No comments:
Post a Comment