I read it. It was there, in black and white, yet it doesn't seem real. How could any of it actually exist? There's no way that people could truly be that interested in such mundane things. Are people really wasting their time on asking such worthless questions? The answers to all of these is yes. It has now become chic to "follow" peoples every waking move, thought, and feeling. Whether it's on Twitter or Facebook or even on here, it's "in" to follow your favorite celebrities or your favorite blogs and not have anything of merit to say for yourself. Do you really thing anyone cares on Facebook where you are at this exact moment every second of the day? It seems that everyone has become caught up in doing and saying whatever they can to get more people to listen to them. Even if it isn't their own words, they'll post whatever they can just to get a few "thumbs up." If getting more followers is the goal, then why bother coming up with anything on your own? I'm sure Kim Kardashian can tweet it for you instead, and she'll get paid by Armani to do it.
Now, I'm sure that someone who's reading this will think to themself, "aren't you attempting to do the exact same thing with this blog?" No, absolutely not. I titled this the musings and ramblings of a mad man and that's exactly what it is. It's just me saying what I feel at a given time. I'm writing this for myself and sometimes to entertain my friends but above all else, I don't care who sees this. I wrote it for myself. Now, if others read it and enjoy it, that's good, too. I will have no problem with that because I didn't have to force words in hopes that others would share it. Don't quote me, don't quote anyone for that matter. Find your own way of saying how YOU feel. For god's sake, stop being so damned lazy and looking for someone else to say something for you. This is like those friends you have that claim they know someone who is "the funniest person in the office," and when you meet them, all they do is quote movies and TV shows. I guess creativity no longer gains you any points when idiots will cackle if you repeat the funny line from the Dane Cook stand up.
Life wasn't meant to be lived online. The internet is a tool to help enrich our lives with information, entertainment and an easier way to communicate with everyone. But just like anything good, people find a way of over using it to the point of it dominating every facet of your life. Web suicide 2.0 is starting to look better and better every day.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
An Interesting Story
Yes...that's Jesus. And yes...he has laser hands. I love this picture (of a picture) so much. We were at a flea market in Georgia that had things like this and some of the other "must haves" in this picture; the "Earnhardt Ave." bumper sticker, the bust of a buck, or the glowing fake fish tank. It also had puppies, cell phone chargers, old Nintendo games, and anything else you could possibly think of. It was the most exciting/weirdest place I've ever witnessed.
The funny thing about pictures is they can cause a flood of memories. This particular picture makes me think more about the awful condition some of the puppies we saw for sale were in. Some looked like they were dying. It was depressing. I have a soft spot for animals, and seeing one in pain is excruciating for me. This all ties back to my adventure to the bank the other day. I was driving from the mall to pick up some change for work and there was a family of ducks crossing the road. I stopped and watched them waddle across the road. They got to the median and proceeded to the other side. the light for oncoming traffic came and some jerk wad proceeded to haul ass and almost hit the ducks. Luckily, the little ones were already across and the momma duck flew away but I literally was ready to follow this guy and pull him out of his car. What kind of lowlife is in such a hurry that he is willing to hit and kill innocent ducks? In all the time I live in Woodbridge, I never saw a duck get hit by a car at Tackett's Mill. I've knocked Woodbridge many times, but at least up there, the people didn't try to run over the water fowl. Only here in Fred-necks-burg would the inbred mouth breathers do such a thing.
While on the subject of the unwashed masses of the lovely Spotsylvania/Stafford/Fredericksburg conglomerate of duh, I joked with one of my friends that if I could do it all over again, I would go to school to be a dentist and move down here because......damn.....I've never seen so many people with so few teeth. And the ones they have are brown and deteriorating. ick. There are times I love living down here, the summer time is not one of them. I take a lot of cheap shots at this area, but it really isn't a bad place to live. The majority of the people down here are super nice. There are worse places to be raising the kids.
I got to see my Uncle Steve and Aunt Susan yesterday. I love them. With me, my aunts and uncles were always cooler than my actual parents. We like the same stuff, we have similar personalities...it's weird I tells ya.
Uncle Steve is a Vietnam vet and just participated in his first Rolling Thunder. I did my time in the Army but never had anything as tragic or heart-wrenching happen to me as what happened to him. Many of his squad mates were killed, he took several rounds to his body, won I think 2 Purple Hearts...it makes me ashamed some times to even think that I did the same kind of service. He gave so much more than I could have ever...I will ride in Rolling Thunder one day as a tribute to all of those who gave it all. Those who lost limbs, loved ones, their own lives. Despite my frustration with the military, this is still my country and those guys are still my brothers. I owe it to them.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Too Much
I started this blog for a number of reasons, the most important one being a place for me to write on a close-to-daily basis. I have yet to do that. The biggest problem is I am not a structured person. I don't follow a consistent schedule even with work. I'm sure I could be much more productive if everything in my life followed a set schedule (working out, paying bills, etc)...but there I go ramblin' away.
I once got to meet Chuck Palahniuk when he did a speaking engagement in Philadelphia. One of the things that he said about writing was that it must be treated like a job for those who are aspiring writers. That you MUST write every day, even if it's only a few sentences, otherwise you'll turn around and it's months since you've written anything.
so I'm going to do what I can to follow his advice.
In the short time I've been working for Gamestop, this company has proven to be so much better than Game Crazy in every way imaginable. It was like a cult with Game Crazy, they were so intent on convincing us that Gamestop was this evil corporate entity that didn't care about customer service. In fact, it is the exact opposite. The company has done more for me in 8 months than Game Crazy did for me in nearly 2 years. And look where Game Crazy is now; gone. I wish I could talk to some of the corporate leaders of Game Crazy one last time just to see if they really believed all the crap they were telling us or if it was just selling the drama to keep their jobs. I think the biggest thing is the district manager I have for Gamestop is a great district manager who actually cares about us as people, not just numbers. Game Crazy never did that.
I once got to meet Chuck Palahniuk when he did a speaking engagement in Philadelphia. One of the things that he said about writing was that it must be treated like a job for those who are aspiring writers. That you MUST write every day, even if it's only a few sentences, otherwise you'll turn around and it's months since you've written anything.
so I'm going to do what I can to follow his advice.
In the short time I've been working for Gamestop, this company has proven to be so much better than Game Crazy in every way imaginable. It was like a cult with Game Crazy, they were so intent on convincing us that Gamestop was this evil corporate entity that didn't care about customer service. In fact, it is the exact opposite. The company has done more for me in 8 months than Game Crazy did for me in nearly 2 years. And look where Game Crazy is now; gone. I wish I could talk to some of the corporate leaders of Game Crazy one last time just to see if they really believed all the crap they were telling us or if it was just selling the drama to keep their jobs. I think the biggest thing is the district manager I have for Gamestop is a great district manager who actually cares about us as people, not just numbers. Game Crazy never did that.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Therapy in Blogopathy
My Grandmother, Roslyn Marcus, passed away on February 7th, 2010. For most people, their grandmother passing away is a sad event. As her first grandchild, it was more than just some old lady who made me cookies every now and then dying. I was the first grandchild for about 8 years, and that was when my brother Nick was born. My cousins are even younger so, as my cousin J.R. (14) said after she died, "she was always old to me." Yeah, that sounds kind of mean, but it's also very true. She couldn't get around like she used to once J.R. was around but when I was young...she was always on the go. So my perspective and memories of her are much different than all the other grand kids.
She took me every where and we did every thing together. Any time I came to her house in Oxen Hill, she took me to whatever restaurant I wanted to go to. She would take me to the park, the pool, to the movies, or anything else that I wanted to do. As I got older, she would take me to Baltimore Orioles games. Any stupid movie I wanted to see, she went with me. She definitely took me to see "Dumb and Dumber" when I was about 11. I think she actually said after the movie "that was the stupidest movie I've ever seen." I felt I owed her for that so when I got to be in my teens and she was a little less mobile, any time she wanted to see a movie, I took her. "The Birdcage," which most teenage boys wouldn't really want to see, was one that we saw together. I figured we were even now.
When she wasn't busy spoiling me, she was always on the go. She was president of the Over 50 club in her home town, she was an active member of the Kennedy Center's Patrons for the Arts and Hadassah (a Jewish Women's Club). When she wasn't doing that, she was bowling or traveling around the world. When I was young, I remember her going to Israel, Alaska, Seattle, Arizona, Germany, Italy, France and that's only what I can remember. You couldn't slow her down. And through all of this, she was single. As long as I knew her, there was no "Grandpa" in the picture which wasn't common in her day.
She was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania where her family had been coal miners. During the Depression they were able to move to Brooklyn, NY because her older sister got a job as a nurse. Nursing was a common bond for the daughters because she and her twin sister Annette both became nurses as well. Right around the time World War II started, my grandmother was scheduled for a shift at the hospital that she didn't want to work. Her supervisor told her she had no choice and, as my Uncle Jeff put it, "she told him where he could stick the job." She then joined the Army as a nurse and was on her way to India. After the war, she came back to the states and continued nursing. She had 3 children; my Uncle Jeff, my Mom, and my Aunt Doris.
After she died, my mom, Sandy and I were looking through boxes and boxes of photos to make an album in honor of her. It made me laugh going through all of those photos because they reminded me of her amazing sense of humor. Her sister Annette and her were identical twins but you could always tell them apart. Aunt Annette was always very proper and serious in the pictures and Grandma always had some smart-ass smirk on her face or was doing some ridiculous pose. Even into her 90's, she still had her sense of humor. She loved "2 and a Half Men" on CBS. The ridiculously over the top sexual innuendos would crack her up. Most people that old are uptight and only watch PBS. She would always call Kramer from Seinfeld "a jerk," but would watch every episode with me and laugh.
There's so much more to her though. She never yelled, was always calm, and very rarely got angry. When she did, you listened to what she had to say. Even when I was in my 20's, she would insist on making me food. "Grandma, I know how to cook. I can get it." "I don't want you messing up the kitchen." That was her way of saying let me do it for you. The same thing went for if I had friends over the house, she would make them food, too. As long as it was a sandwich, you were fine. If she actually "cooked" something, you had to be careful. She was known to burn everything. I didn't have a non-burned pancake for at least the first 10 years of my life.
It's been about 2 months since we buried Grandma, and this is the first time I've really put down words to express how I feel/felt about the whole thing. It all happened so fast I never really got a chance to be sad, there was too much stuff to do. Throughout writing this, I've smiled some and teared up a little, too. I miss her. When I needed advice, she was the one I turned to. Whenever I had a problem, she seemed to be the one to bail me out. I'm glad she was able to meet her great-grandson. I'm glad that every time she held him, he would smile at her. One thing she loved was to be around her family, and I hope that now she's with her siblings and parents in heaven.
She took me every where and we did every thing together. Any time I came to her house in Oxen Hill, she took me to whatever restaurant I wanted to go to. She would take me to the park, the pool, to the movies, or anything else that I wanted to do. As I got older, she would take me to Baltimore Orioles games. Any stupid movie I wanted to see, she went with me. She definitely took me to see "Dumb and Dumber" when I was about 11. I think she actually said after the movie "that was the stupidest movie I've ever seen." I felt I owed her for that so when I got to be in my teens and she was a little less mobile, any time she wanted to see a movie, I took her. "The Birdcage," which most teenage boys wouldn't really want to see, was one that we saw together. I figured we were even now.
When she wasn't busy spoiling me, she was always on the go. She was president of the Over 50 club in her home town, she was an active member of the Kennedy Center's Patrons for the Arts and Hadassah (a Jewish Women's Club). When she wasn't doing that, she was bowling or traveling around the world. When I was young, I remember her going to Israel, Alaska, Seattle, Arizona, Germany, Italy, France and that's only what I can remember. You couldn't slow her down. And through all of this, she was single. As long as I knew her, there was no "Grandpa" in the picture which wasn't common in her day.
She was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania where her family had been coal miners. During the Depression they were able to move to Brooklyn, NY because her older sister got a job as a nurse. Nursing was a common bond for the daughters because she and her twin sister Annette both became nurses as well. Right around the time World War II started, my grandmother was scheduled for a shift at the hospital that she didn't want to work. Her supervisor told her she had no choice and, as my Uncle Jeff put it, "she told him where he could stick the job." She then joined the Army as a nurse and was on her way to India. After the war, she came back to the states and continued nursing. She had 3 children; my Uncle Jeff, my Mom, and my Aunt Doris.
After she died, my mom, Sandy and I were looking through boxes and boxes of photos to make an album in honor of her. It made me laugh going through all of those photos because they reminded me of her amazing sense of humor. Her sister Annette and her were identical twins but you could always tell them apart. Aunt Annette was always very proper and serious in the pictures and Grandma always had some smart-ass smirk on her face or was doing some ridiculous pose. Even into her 90's, she still had her sense of humor. She loved "2 and a Half Men" on CBS. The ridiculously over the top sexual innuendos would crack her up. Most people that old are uptight and only watch PBS. She would always call Kramer from Seinfeld "a jerk," but would watch every episode with me and laugh.
There's so much more to her though. She never yelled, was always calm, and very rarely got angry. When she did, you listened to what she had to say. Even when I was in my 20's, she would insist on making me food. "Grandma, I know how to cook. I can get it." "I don't want you messing up the kitchen." That was her way of saying let me do it for you. The same thing went for if I had friends over the house, she would make them food, too. As long as it was a sandwich, you were fine. If she actually "cooked" something, you had to be careful. She was known to burn everything. I didn't have a non-burned pancake for at least the first 10 years of my life.
It's been about 2 months since we buried Grandma, and this is the first time I've really put down words to express how I feel/felt about the whole thing. It all happened so fast I never really got a chance to be sad, there was too much stuff to do. Throughout writing this, I've smiled some and teared up a little, too. I miss her. When I needed advice, she was the one I turned to. Whenever I had a problem, she seemed to be the one to bail me out. I'm glad she was able to meet her great-grandson. I'm glad that every time she held him, he would smile at her. One thing she loved was to be around her family, and I hope that now she's with her siblings and parents in heaven.
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