America’s Downfall
Readers, as all of you should be aware, a terrible thing has happened on this historic night. An event that will most certainly change the United States, if not the world, as we know it forever. It is very unfortunate that this chain of events should occur, but it has, and now we all must prepare for what is most certainly a bleak, dark, future. I am talking of course, about holograms.
The first ever hologram was transmitted tonight into the CNN Situation room, and it created quite a situation…in the room. The great Wolf Blitzer was obviously taken by surprise, but was able to pacify this phantom menace for the time being. It is obvious that The Empire has returned, and with it, the terrible technolgy that they have developed. I’m sure it is only a matter of time before the Death Star is operational and the Earth itself is faced with complete annihilation. My prayers go out to the brave X-wing pilots that will be faced with defeating this overpowering force in the months to come. God speed my friends, god speed.
Political Ads
Sorry It’s been a while since I’ve posted, I’m sure you’ve all missed me. The site has been very light hearted up to this point, it’s mostly been a blog version of conversations you might see on Seinfeld, but I’m going to go ahead and dive into something with substance. I think somewhere along the line Dan and I mentioned that we were getting into (or at least hoping to get into) journalism and politics respectively. As long as I still have your attention; you are about to bear witness to my first foray into publicly writing about politics, take a deep breath and hold your nose.
With the Presidential election starting to heat up, it’s probably safe to assume that many of you have become inundated with political ads. As usual, both sides are using any trick they have to paint their own candidate in as positive a light as possible while simultaneously attempting to make the other guy look bad.
That’s fine, it’s kind of the point of advertising in general.
I’m gonna go ahead and get this out of the way so that there is no confusion, although I’m sure I’ll have about half of my audience click the back button once they are done reading the next sentence. I consider myself to be a moderate conservative and a strong supporter of John McCain. If you don’t agree with me, please, for once, read what I have to say anyway; I’m sick of people only reading what they already agree with.
Anyway, back to the purpose of this post. Today I saw a new Obama ad which implies that because McCain has registered lobbyists on his payroll, lobbyists will run his administration. This infuriates me. Obama has created a ’strawman’ of lobbyists which he uses to depict himself as the vanquisher of the lobbying plague which has supposedly descended upon the country. Lobbyists are not evil people. If you believe they are you are weak minded; plain and simple. You may not agree with the specific interests that certain lobbyists lobby for, but that doesn’t mean that 1) they are wrong or 2) that they are bad people.
Simply put, a lobbyist is someone who is paid to convince legislators that their side of an issue is the right one. Disney employs several firms, does that mean that those lobbyists are bad people? How about the environmental lobby? The Teacher’s Union lobby? Ohhhh, so only the lobbying groups that you don’t agree with are evil. I see. Every industry you could possibly imagine has lobbyists attached to it, they would be stupid not to. It would be like a toy company without an ad department. The only difference here is that the target audience is not the American public, but rather the American government.
If you can’t see things my way and still feel that lobbyists are inherently evil, that’s fine. If that is the case though, I don’t want to hear anyone make any excuses for the bomb shell I’m about to drop on you here.
Barack Obama currently employs and takes money from registered lobbyists and their clients.
According to opensecrets.org Lawyers and Lobbyists make up a total of $24 million in campaign contributions to Sen. Obama. Compare that to the $9 million Sen. McCain raised from the same sector. Who is supposedly in the pocket of lobbyists now? What’s more, although Sen. Obama’s attack ad against Sen. McCain chastises him for employing lobbyists as advisers, Obama goes ahead and employs several of his own. According to an article at thehill.com the lobbyists on Obama’s payroll lobbied for Wal-Mart, British Petroleum (BP), and Lockheed Martin (a military contractor), just to name a few.
Senator Obama has done what he does best, spin the truth and convince people too lazy to do their homework that he is a messiah. I promise you this; Barack Obama is just as sly as any other politician, what makes him the most dangerous one however, is that people actually believe him.
Don’t buy the hype.
Search Terms
I think this is going to become a recurring issue here at SBT.
Some of the things that people type into search engines and end up at our site is mind blowing. I was looking at our blog stats today and I just had to share a few of my recent favorites with you, our loyal readers. Think I’ll do a little David Letterman type countdown.
At number 3: “Shoeswinger” - This was one of the hobo’s names in Dan’s Hobo Digest Post, why anyone would search for Hobo Shoeswinger specifically is beyond me.
Number 2: “How to dress like a hobo that used to ride the rails” - SBT is apparently ground zero for all the latest info on hobos and hobo imitation.
And at number 1 (drum roll): “Gag reflex and repressed memories” - seriously? you sure bout that?
Cart… Horse
I was recently in Washington D.C. to look at a few apartments. I have decided, come hell or high water, that I am moving to D.C. as soon as I possibly can. The only problem is that when I decided this I also thought I would have a job by now. If you are new to the ’sure bout that’ community (we’re a community the way that a family of four is a city) than let me get you caught up. Dan and I are unemployed, this is a recurring theme. But, I have told myself that if I move to D.C. first, it will be easier to find a job. Here is my reasoning: 1) if I am living in D.C., as opposed to my parents house, I will have to spend what little savings I have in order to survive until I find a job and 2) seeing people go to work everyday all around me will motivate me to really pound the pavement and get out as many resumes as possible.
So, on Wednesday evening I signed the lease to a 2 bedroom apartment with a former co-worker from my internship last summer. I’m taking the plunge and hoping I can find a job like, nowish, so I can actually afford to live in the extremely expensive city that is Washington D.C.
I may find myself waiting tables in the mean time…
Games and Gaming
I’m actually surprised that neither of us have written much about gaming yet. Dan and I are both pretty avid gamers, we’re at the point where we probably play games considerably more than we should.
I think we each have our gaming “niche” that we follow, but we overlap a pretty good bit too. Dan is really big on the portable stuff, namely the Nintendo DS. For those of you that thought portable gaming systems were just for when you’re traveling, you’ve obviously never met Dan. If he could, Dan would have his DS surgically attached to his body. I wouldn’t be surprised if he told me he regularly played his DS during sex, that is, if he were able to trick some poor hapless lady of the night into his Grandmother’s home. I’m more into the strategy type games, that or anything that has a constant goal for me to chase. I’ve been a fan of the Civilization type games since they first started appearing, and games like World of Warcraft, where you’re always trying to get that better piece of armor, tend to hold me in a vice grip.
Unfortunately, our love for video games is often disrupted by our severe inability to find gainful employment. (I feel almost like I’m beating a dead horse here, “ok, we get it, you guys are unemployed, can you please write a post that doesn’t mention you two morons trying and failing miserably to get a job?!?”) This lack of cash has lead us down the slippery slope of free internet flash games. I play them daily, I’m not proud of it, but I do. (”Hello, my name is Pat, and I’m a game-a-holic.” “Hi Pat”)
We’ve seen quite a plethora of flash games, ranging from vomit inducingly poor (i.e 3/4 of the crap on newgrounds) to cripplingly addictive (Dolphin Olympics 2). So I’m taking this opportunity to introduce you, reader, to some of my favorite flash games. Feel free to mention any that I miss, my list isn’t all that long; I’ve got a very diserning palate.
(later)
I originally started naming my favorite flash games here and then giving a brief little summary of what they were. After writing the second summary I felt like I was writing for a really bad episode of ‘Reading Rainbow’ and I couldn’t get the image of Levar Burton out of my head. So instead, I’ll stop insulting your intelligence and just link a few of my favorites here. You’re all smart kids, you can figure them out for yourselves.
Ikariam - Think civilization but free.
Dolphin Olympics 2- You control a dolphin, that’s cool enough for me.
GemCraft - A base defender type game.
Thats all for now. Like I said, if you’ve got any that you really like please post them in the comments section.
The Prodigal Son
Well, I’ve been AWOL for a while now, and undoubtedly you, our loyal readers, have been concerned for my well being. I would like to thank you all for the cards and kind words over the last few days, they have really helped me through this rough patch.
As Dan mentioned to you a few weeks back, I was auditioning for a major part in NBC’s new reality TV show ‘Ugly Freddy.’ I had flown all the way down to sunny Florida, which is where they will be filming the show in the next few months (it’s sort of an ugly/beautiful contrast shtick they’re running with, you know, ugly guy amongst the beautiful people and beaches of Florida).
It was tough competition, I’ll tell you that! About 30 of us, the ugliest people from around the globe, gathered in one place to prove that we were the ugliest one for the job. The days of auditioning were relentless. First, the mirror breaking contest (I had been practicing a lot for that one so it was really where I shined), then, the child scare (walk around letting children see your face until they run away screaming), there were more but I’m contractually obligated to keep them secret.
I really thought I was doing well with most of the contests; I won a few and did pretty well in the rest. Everywhere I went people were telling me I was the ugliest person they had ever seen, it really made me feel good about myself. By the last day only 10 of the original 30 were strong enough to make it through the challenges. Watching people drop out was painful, this one guy, I still have nightmares about him. His name was Brandon; it was his turn for the kid scare and the first kid he walked up to… smiled at him. Brandon fell to pieces right there, I’ve never seen a man more broken in my life. I can’t even blame him though, I mean, you spend your whole life bragging about how ugly you are just to have some kid smile at you. If Brandon’s family is reading this, my condolences on your loss.
So, on the last day the 10 of us that remained were gathered together by the producers. I thought I was a shoe in, it had to be me, it just had to. Then, the lead producer started looking directly near me (he said it hurt too bad to look directly at me). “Here it comes” I thought, “my big moment!” But then he started explaining that while I was the ugliest one there, in the filming trials his camera men would go into a bout of hysteria after filming me and run to the nearest fire to burn the tapes. He said they kept shouting something along the lines of “el feo Diablo, el feo Diablo!” Unfortunately, because they were unable to keep any film of me away from the raging infernos which the camera crew had hastily constructed, it would be impossible for them to use me as Ugly Freddy.
It’s been a few weeks since the auditions and I’m finally starting to return to my normal routine. I’ll keep on keeping on like I always have.
(cue REM’s everybody hurts)
Moon Chips (cont.)
Be sure to read Dan’t post below first. He’s the one who started this terrible mess.
When I was but a youngster my mom would come home with Sun Chips because she was trying to bring home a healthy alternative snack food. I don’t know if this was before the inception of flavored powder but she ALWAYS brought home the original. I loathed Sun Chips as a child. I would see that red bag and immediately, flashes of the last time I ate those flavorless crisps would forcably penetrate my mind.
This hatred of Sun Chips stuck with me for a while. Late in high school, I started experimenting with new things and decided to give these little monsters made of wheat that haunted my childhood another shot. I was pretty near rock bottom and I was willing to try them if they might give me that buzz I was looking for. Strangely enough I enjoyed them. I thought to myself “holy hell, mom was right. You actually do start to like stuff that tastes gross when you get old.” It wasn’t until much later that I found out those little waffers of wheat had been flavored with a deliciously artificial cheese like substance.
I too have had a recent run in with the original variety of Sun Chips, and let me tell you; I reached a very different conclusion than Dan did.
The perpatrator of this Sun Chip fiasco was, not unlike the prodigal son returning to give a big middle finger to his old man, my mother. I had returned home for a weekend to visit some friends and her unending concern for my imminent demise prompted her to buy me some food to return with. Somehow she though that as far as snacks were concerned, a bag of Cracker Jack (which I didn’t even know they made anymore) would go nicely with a bag of the original, tasteless, Sun Chips.
Like Dan, I eventually became very hungry and decided to crack open that bag o’ Sun Chips. Immediately the repressed memories of my childhood came rushing back like an avalanche made of spiders. I tried to eat them (the chips not the spiders) but just couldn’t, I was afraid that my gag reflex would soon overwhelm my self control. I hate the original “flavored” Sun Chips. I hate them with every fiber of my being.
Do Work, Son
One of the things that Dan and I think could end up making this blog interesting is our chosen career paths. As you can see from Dan’s last post, he’s trying to get into that whole journalism thing, the kid can write so I guess it works for him. My direction is politics (I know, I’m the spawn of the devil for wanting to be anywhere near politics). The media and politicians have a pretty tenuous relationship, so it could be cool.
The main problem here is that neither one of us actually has a job.
I guess we’re on the right track though. Dan’s got his internship goin on and I just had a pretty promising interview. This is right back in the vein of stuff that pretty much everyone has to do, but I think it’s blogworthy.
I had my first real interview a couple of days ago. Everyone has those interviews they have to sit through when they go to work at drivethrough X, or retailer Y, or that time they were in a porno, but you pretty much know you’re gonna get the job. This was a lot more stressful than I remember any of those being (except maybe the porno). So I drove down to Washington D.C to interview with an organization that will remain nameless and interviewed for over 2 hours. 2 hours of questions, comments and hypothetical situations. It all went well though, I think I made a good impression on everyone I talked to. By far, the toughest part was my last interviewer. I was supposed to meet with the Executive VP of the company, which I was pretty stressed about already… I mean, the guy is number 2 in charge of the whole joint. Apparently, the fates conspired against me and he was called out, so instead I got to meet with the President, CEO, and founder of the organization…”Jesus”.
Ok… from that sentence it looks like I met with Jesus. I did not meet with the proported son of God, rather, I exclaimed “Jesus.”
The guy asked the kinds of questions you would expect from the President of a multi-million dollar organization. It was rough, but I think I did ok. Once I was done they told me they’d be interviewing one more person next week and that I should know if I got the job shortly after that.
In the famous words of Homer Simpson, “The waiting game sucks. Let’s play Hungry Hungry Hippos.”
On Cars and Crashing Them
I promised I’d blog about my car crash, so I guess that’s what I’m doing.
As weird as it sounds, one of the first things I thought of after I crashed my car, right after I checked to make sure I still had all of my bones (I have them numbered for just such an occasion), was that it would be something cool to blog about. That thought was actually made even more strange due to the fact that I didn’t actually have a blog yet. But I’m getting side tracked. Back to the twisting of metal.
…
I just wrote out the story of how I crashed my car and, I’ll be honest with you, it isn’t interesting. Not even a little. I sat here for about 20 minutes thinking about how to use more ‘active verbs’ or ‘flowery language’ or ‘porno’ in order to force the story to be interesting, but it just isn’t happening. What is interesting is this: I had fun crashing my car. The last thing I planned on doing that day was slamming the back end of my car into the concrete divider of a highway at 60 mph, and I’d certainly never do it on purpose. But even right after it happened, I kinda thought to myself, ”that was pretty effin’ cool.” Imagine a roller coaster ride where from begining to end you are fully aware that you very well could die right where you sit. That sounds a bit morbid reading back over it, but I’m telling you, a car crash is the purist’s roller coaster.
You can pay to jump out of planes, it won’t be long before people start buying tickets to slam late model American cars into obstacles on a highway.
The End (continued)
After I wrote the title to this post I realized that it might, at first glance, be mistaken for some really dark/emo entry. Hopefully, you, the reader, have had the patience to read past the title and realize that it’s not (for those of you who were actually looking for something emo to brighten up your day with…sorry(?)).
I’ve come to the realization recently that a number of things in my life are ending pretty abruptly. I mean, most of them I either saw coming or were supposed to end by now, but I’m not exactly one to prepare ahead of time. The big one is my shift in lifestyle. For the past 4 years I’ve been a college student, doing all the things that college students do (the ones that aren’t lame at least). Now I’m getting a real j.o.b and I’m supposed to get drunk considerably less frequently. More importantly I’m moving to a city in which I know a total of about 3 people.
I feel kind of silly blogging about this, it is something that pretty much everyone does at one point or another. I don’t really know what I expect people to say when I tell them about it “Wow! you graduated from college this year like millions of other people? And now you’re pursuing a career?!? What are you? Out of your god damned mind?!?”
Still.
One thing that did end recently (to my surprise) was the existence of my car. For now, suffice it to say that I crashed it. Maybe I’ll blog out that story a little later.
Anyway, think I’m gonna go home and play Dolphin Olympics 2.