Why I Have High Blood Pressure

I figured out exactly why it is men exist this morning.  Remember how my town has this law that requires me to move my car at least one car length or get a ticket?  Well, it’s Friday and it’s time for us to move our cars to avoid any ticket.  Wifey decides to take it upon herself to move the cars on her own.  That’s awful nice of her, right?

At 6:45am, she wakes me up and says that the truck key is stuck in the ignition (note, Wifey doesn’t what an ignition is, so I’ve used that term for the ease of my male readers.  Women, the ignition is the thingy that you stick the key in before you turn the key and make car go).  Let’s back up for a moment.  Last Fall, I had to get the starter replaced in the truck after the key got stuck in the ignition (again, Ladies, the thingy that makes car go when turned with key in it) and could not move at all in any direction; that was quite a pain in the ass.  The thought of getting another starter in my car, and the new set of keys that comes with it, is something that I don’t want to think about.  So, I angrily get up out of bed and go outside to the truck.

What happens when I get in the truck?  I turn the key forward, press the little button, turn the key back, and pull it out (heh, heh).  Yep, the key jumps right out of the ingnition.  I don’t have to jerk it around, I don’t have to curse at it, yell at it, or plead with it to get it out of the ignition (again, the ignition makes car go when key is in it and turned.  The proper term is “thingy”).

And this is why men exist.  Men exist to do simple things like get a key out of an ignition.  You would think that women are capable of such things, after all, they are not remotely complicated and only involving turns forward and backwards, but they are not.  No, women are just not capable of making car go.  As long as simple things, like turning a key while pressing a button, are required to get keys out of ignitions, men will need to exist.  Until then, women will just have to have hot, lesbian action on the side with men nearby to turn their keys.

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I’m going back to Closing Time this week.  This song is one of Waits’ best, “Grapefruit Moon”.  I hope you all enjoy it.

As for the RANDOM ANGRY SONG, I’m going back to Neil Young and “Vampire”.  Enjoy!

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That’s not actually true, I’m a big fan of television. However, I think it’s time for television to be modified/supplemented/replaced by the internet. I much prefer the freedom of choosing when I can watch shows and what shows I can watch online as opposed to a predetermined format. For example, Wifey and I don’t have the SciFi network, so we watch Battlestar online. And let me tell you, it’s great. We watch three or four episodes in a row and then she falls asleep and I touch her without her knowing.

It’s the same with The 4400 right now. We never got around to watching the final season of one of the greatest shows to hit television in years because we don’t have USA and our friend who actually watched it couldn’t tape the last season for us. Wifey and I are going to speed through them real quick and it is going to be fantastic.

I’ve decided that not only should more television shows be put online for instant access at any time (preferably for free), but programs should be made entirely for the internet by the major television networks (there are rumors that Farscape will return to the internet soon). Studios could use the internet to push television to strange new places and really experiment. No more standard laugh track format and ridiculous sitcoms. The internet could bring about more changes in regular television and we could end up with more programs like Battlestar, The 4400, Firefly, and other shows that make you think about what you watch. It’d be fantastic.

And it wouldn’t just be limited to science fiction shows, it would easily expand to comedies and dramas. Imagine if you could have had a show like Arrested Development online. It could have been unfiltered and could have pushed it’s unique and irrelevant style of humor to new heights without having to worry about the censors and idiots at FOX (much like The Office webisodes). In fact, if TV shows were done exclusively for the web, the aforementioned Firefly would almost certainly still be airing new episodes (the same would be true if it had been on a network run by intelligent people instead of those idiots at FOX).  Imagine how even more radical shows like Lost could be if they had internet counterparts.

If shows were made specifically online and proved popular, the network shows would almost certainly adapt to the internet shows and make the standard shows more groundbreaking and less conventional. It would be fun to watch to say the least and would be a lot like how public access made some people very famous (it did give us Greg the Bunny, after all) but on a broader scale as the internet could easily reach more people.

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This is the post I promised about my evolving political philosophy.  Enjoy.

I was walking to get my hair cut a few days ago and hid my Thor’s Hammer (it’s both long and wide, ladies) necklace underneath my shirt. Wifey bought it for me when she went to Denmark without me while I got to work all summer, thanks a lot, bitch, last summer. I wear it pretty regularly, but sometimes I wear it underneath my shirt to avoid explaining that it’s not an ancient form of a cross and that I’m wearing something that has become associated with white supremacists.

As I slipped the Hammer (again, it’s quite large, ladies) under my shirt, I started thinking about why it is that monotheistic religions have replaced our polytheistic origins. It occurred to me that it is easier to control a monotheistic religion than it is to control a polytheistic religion. After all, there’s only one God in a monotheistic religion and one God is easier to control than it is to control multiple Gods. It gets even easier if you attach a scary devil to the monotheistic religion. At that point, the person who wants control over the religion can say, “Do what I say or you will go to hell.” Pretty hard to resist that kind of a sales pitch, isn’t it?

That got me thinking about the duality of our modern society, politics in particular. We have a two-party system, the Democrats and the Refrackyouinthearselicans. It’s pretty easy to figure out which one is the evil one, huh? This two-party system forces you to be one or the other, be a conservative or a liberal, be for something or against something, fit in the square hole even if you are a round peg, etc., etc. You can’t stray from that path, you must be one or the other, and I find that unappealing. Why is that we are only given two choices? Why can’t we have more options? Why is it that we have to restrict ourselves? What happened to the more the merrier (lipstick lesbians, give Wifey and I a call so we can see if this saying is true)?

But you don’t just see that in the context of politics, it extends into other areas of society. Religion is an obvious example. If you’re not a Christian, you’re going to hell. If you’re not a Muslim, you’re going to hell. If you’re not Mormon, you’re sane going to hell. At law school, the big debate is whether to go into public service or sell out and work for a big firm in a big city. Why are those the only two choices? There is much more to do other than just work for a large firm or work for the government. I’m working for a smaller firm in a smaller town and will try to volunteer at the local public defender’s office. There is also educational work, consulting work, non-legal work, and the like. You are not bound by two simple choices.  There are more than two choices, almost always. So, why do we limit ourselves to just two choices?

I’m not sure, but I’m going to try to reject the two choice scenario and find a third way as often as possible. As to politics, I’m going to stop voting for a Democrat just because the guy or gal is a Democrat and is theoretically more in line with my political beliefs. Each candidate will have to earn my vote, I will not rely on meaningless party labels any longer. This will probably result in me voting for more third-parties as I usually end up unhappy when I vote for a Democrat (John Kerry, cough, cough, and several South Carolina Democrats), although I was proud to vote for Tim Kaine, Jim Webb, and I can’t wait to vote for Mark Warner. As to religion, I don’t really consider myself a Christian, so I’ve avoided one big area of social control. I’m not sure if I’m going to seek out a religion at all for that matter, but if I do, I won’t be limited by the narrow choices that mainstream society forces upon us.

As to work, we’ll just have to wait and see. Maybe I can become a blogger for a living. It seems to work pretty well for Mike, although the stress sure did a number on his kidney.

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My graduation came and went and I got my J.D. yesterday. I had a pretty good turnout from my family members and brought in quite a graduation haul and the money was really the only reason that I wanted my family to show up, but I don’t care about the money, I was just glad that everyone showed up.

Here are some photos (thanks to Wifey for taking these yesterday!):

Not sure if you could tell, but I didn’t wear a dress shirt or a tie under the stupid regalia we had.  I realized that it was going to be way too hot if the sun came out (which it did) and just went with an undershirt.  It was prescient to say the least as it got very, very hot out.  The cloud cover broke and the sun beat down on us for about ninety minutes.

After all the graduation festivities were over, the family had a cookout and we just relaxed and drank and had a good time.  My brother brought his Wii up and he and I relived old times from our youth and played River City Ransom.  I had not played that game in many, many years, but my skills were as sharp as ever and my brother and I beat it in just a little over an hour.

All in all, it was a good day.

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I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson’s movies. He made three great films that are must-sees, Bottle Rockets, Rushmore, and The Royal Tannenbaums. I love those movies and quote from them semi-regularly.

However, I’m sure that you all are aware that Wes Anderson has made five films, not just the three that I mentioned. I tried to watch The Life Aquatic, but fell asleep twenty minutes into it because the story bored the hell out of me, although the scenery was absolutely stunning and perhaps unequaled in modern film. Yesterday, I watched his follow-up to The Life Aquatic, The Darjeeling Limited.

I almost blew up my DVD player twenty minutes into the film. I didn’t care about any of the characters, the story didn’t catch my attention, and I was just bored out of mind. It felt like I was watching a ninety minute montage with a story tacked on to make it into a movie. None of the humor that marked Anderson’s first three films was present, and when humor was used, it felt very forced and not at all natural.

I’m not sure why it is that I haven’t liked Wes Anderson’s last two films and why I’ve found the stories so boring. It may be that Owen Wilson is no longer co-writing movies with Wes Anderson, and that seems like a good explanation. Without Wilson, Anderson’s films lack the humor and humanity of the characters in Bottle Rockets, Rushmore, and Tannenbaums. Another possible reason for not liking the films is that my expectations are too high after Anderson’s first three films (although I doubt that as my expectations for The Darjeeling Limited were not that high).

Finally, it could be that I’m simply tired of watching Wes Anderson movies that deal with dysfunctional families. He’s done five films about family problems and it may be that I just feel like he’s said all I care to hear him say about the subject (I remember learning in one of my film classes that Ingmar Bergman stopped making films about God because he’d said all he can say about the subject). Basically, my problem is that the films are covering the same ground that he’s already covered and I don’t care to see him do that anymore. That’s why I stopped reading Tom Robbins’ books. After I finished the third book I’d read by him, I realized that I’d read the book twice before (which reminds me of a great line by Gene McCarthy about Hubert Humphrey’s defense of the Vietnam War as Vice-President. McCarthy left a Senate hearing where Humphrey was testifying about five minutes into the hearing. When asked by reporters why he left so early, McCarthy responded, “If I’d stayed twenty more minutes, I’d have heard it all before”).

So, what do you guys think about the problem I’ve developed with Wes Anderson movies? Did you all see The Life Aquatic and/or The Darjeeling Limited? What did you think? Have you had some problems with Anderson’s recent flicks? Should I give the two movies another watch? I could use some additional opinions from my loyal readers.

Also, there is a gift registry up for a certain AngryBaby out there that HTGT was kind enough to set up.  Thanks, HTGT!

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This is a wonderful Tom Waits song from Closing Time. It’s bittersweet to say the least, but you will enjoy this one. The video will probably give Malach a raging clue, given that he wants to do Tom Waits so bad.

As to the RANDOM ANGRY SONG, I’m going with The Reverend Horton Heat’s “Eat Steak”. The video is a little weird, but the song is a classic.

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I finished The Traveler last night. It was a pretty good book, although some of the writing bothered me. The author’s use of similes was particularly obnoxious, but the universe that the author created made the book certainly worth reading.

I’m not sure if I’m going to read the rest of the trilogy, though. I’m getting kind of tired of trilogies.  I understand that the publishing companies force trilogies on authors in order to pad their profit margins, but it would be nice to just read a complete novel and let that be the end of it.

I have some interesting political news, that relates to me only, that I will reveal shortly.  It involves the development of my political philosophy.  I think you’ll find it interesting.  I’m working on the post and it should be done soon.

The Cubs are going through a little bit of a rough patch at the moment despite the win last night.  I blame this on Soriano hitting lead-off.  He isn’t a good lead-off hitter, he can’t run, and he needs to hit lower down in the order so he can drive in runs.  Also, Ramirez has been dinged up, but I’m not as worried about that.  When the Cubs were hot, real hot, Soriano was injured and Reed Johnson was lights out at the top of the order.  It’s time for Piniella to move Soriano down to sixth and put Johnson back at the top of the order.

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This post is for the fellas out there, but also for the evil bitches lovely ladies who read my blog.  When they do to their men what Wifey did to me or really hot lesbian lovers (in that case, take pics or video), they will now know when breakfast is required as the first step to make up for their shameful actions.

Wifey made me breakfast this morning.  I got out of bed and demanded that she make me breakfast right away and she got off her ass and made me breakfast, no questions asked.  Why?  What caused this earth-shattering event?  Nothing complicated, nothing complicated at all.  WIFEY JUST ELBOWED ME IN THE HEAD TWICE LAST NIGHT!!!

That’s right, she elbowed me in the head twice.  Why?  I have no idea.  It’s not like I had done anything wrong.  We didn’t get in a fight or anything like that.  It had been a pretty good day all in all, Wifey and I went to a work-related May Cinco Day event at 4pm and took the dog on a nice long walk when we got back.  After that, we had dinner and just killed time until bed.  Wifey exercised, I read, and we watched a little television.

We went to bed and I was having a peaceful night of sleep when all of the sudden, WHAM!!!  An elbow comes flying down from the heavens above and tries to bore a hole into the center of my head.  I wake up stunned, feeling like a cow that had just been hit in the head by a farmer trying to slaughter it and turn it into steak.  I see no one in the room, no one has broken into my house, nothing.  Maybe it was a dream, a very, very realistic dream that left my vision slightly poor.  Yes, that was it, a dream, so I go back to sleep.

But then, a little while later . . . BAM!

Elbow attack again!  What the frell is this all about?  Why does Wifey keep hitting me in the head with her fracking elbows?  After that, I stumble out of bed, tripping over my own feet constantly as I try to splash some cold water on my face to stay awake.  I make it to the bathroom after falling down face-first twice (which Wifey didn’t hear) and managed to stay awake long enough to guarantee that I don’t have a concussion.  Unfortunately, the assault on my brain damaged my speech and I had to watch television for a while to learn how to talk properly again.  In a random aside, I now talk like Craig T. Nelson from “Coach” — it was on in the early, early morning here.  I guess the only people who watch it are people who are trying to learn how to talk again after surviving a thermonuclear attack on their brain.

After my speech returned, I drove down to Wal-Mart and bought a football helmet.  I put that on my head, returned home, and went to sleep.  I woke up about twenty minutes later and to find rocket fire coming down on my head.  I looked around, afraid that the Bush Administration has decided to unleash its missiles on dissenters, and find Wifey attacking me with all the force her elbows can muster.  I slide off the bed and run to my office.  I holed up there for the rest of the night.

When I woke up, I told Wifey, “You owe me breakfast.  You hit me in the fracking head with your frelling elbows!  What the frack is wrong with you?”

She says, “If you want breakfast, all you have to do is ask.  There is no need to tell lies.  But where did you get that indentation in your forehead?”

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I got back from a weekend trip to the Steel City and Wifey and I took a long and badly needed nap.  I woke up around 8pm, the nap started around 5pm, and haven’t been able to go back to sleep.

One of the advantages to traveling north is all the Dunkin’ Donuts that I come across.  There isn’t one anywhere near me (closest one is like 40 minutes north) and it’s terrible.  They have the best frelling coffee and donuts.  I think that it’s time I jettison the legal career and open up a Dunkin’ Donuts here in town.  What do you guys think?

I’m almost half way done with The Traveler and I’ve been fighting the urge to stop reading it for about the last 150 pages.  Great story idea, great concept, but the author has some terribly unnecessary sentences and can really put together an awkward sentence.  Every couple of pages, there will be a sentence that just doesn’t make sense in the context of the story or is unnecessary.  It’s really frustrating and distracting from what’s a pretty good story.  I’ve also found a few grammar errors in the book.  Lousy publishing company.

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