I ACTUALLY LIKE THIS SHIT, part XX

"New in Town" by Little Boots

Click on the link below the posted video to see the actual '80s-inspired video made for this song.

Another MUZAK-at-work-inspired entry. I should probably mention (why not?, it's only been twenty entries thus far) that I own all the songs I've posted in this series :-)

MORE FILLER MATERIAL

      I saw this posted on someecards.com the other day. It both made me laugh and got me annoyed because I hadn't thought of it first :-)

     I think his mistake though was charging for this "service". I would happily do so not only for free, but pay for the date (as any man should) too. :-P

OBAMA REALLY NEEDS TO GROW A PAIR, part II

      A quick foray into politics again. This time about the budget.

      Simply put, I am what I guess would be referred to as a deficit hawk. I don't like the idea of being in debt at all though I will grant allowances for both emergencies and investments. Personally I don't think the United States should be allowed to run budget deficits except during declared wars and economic depressions. Since neither situation is politically palatable, it's something that would rarely come up.

      Despite what you may think, the United States is not at war. War has not been declared by Congress since the 1940s. That would mean, under my rules, the Korean Conflict, the Cold War, Vietnam, the first Gulf War, the Kosovo action, Afghanistan, and the second Gulf War (as well as any of the various minor insurgencies like Somalia that the USA has conducted over the years) would all had to have been paid for up front either through raised overall taxes or surtaxes whereas World Wars I & II could have been paid for through bond programs and promissory notes.

      Our last economic depression was in the 1930s so the huge deficits of the past decades  would also not have been permitted.

       Now, I'm not a total hard-ass on this stuff. I understand investments. Things like highways (and roads in general) are designed to last for a certain number of years before replacement so setting up a bond program to pay for the building of the Interstate Highway System would have been totally justified, setting up a bond program to electrify the nation would have been totally justified, setting up a bond program to build sewer systems would have been totally justified, but setting up the TARP fund to bail out banks whose greed and arrogance caused them to fuck up so badly as to put the US economy into a tailspin however, would not have been justified for deficit spending. The current military engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq are not justified under my rules for deficit spending since no formal Declaration of War has been issued. I don't care if declaring war sounds quaint these days, it's the Constitutional duty and SOLE authority of Congress to do so. Passing legislation effectively delegating the decision to the President by authorizing the use of force sounds Unconstitutional to me. And while I'm annoyed that President Obama did not order a full retreat upon entering office, that's not the point of this uneducated rant.

       The Republicans, after decades of deficit spending on their watch, are suddenly against deficits again and all they wanna cut are bullshit programs that don't add up to nearly enough to reduce deficits or even eliminate them. They're not suggesting the return of "PayGo" either. While it's fairly clear at this point that their real agenda is a careful blend of hypocrisy, misogyny, and fucking the poor, no one is effectively calling them out on it. Now, I'm not suggesting that they be openly accused of hating women, no. They've made it a campaign platform that deficits are killing America, blah, blah, blah. Well, the New York Times several months ago presented a kind of game to allowing the reader to "Fix the Budget". They provided a list of options and such and I personally had no problem not only reducing the budget but eliminating it entirely and putting the US back in the black. I personally have no problems with raising taxes (they offered Clinton-era rates) and cutting the military down to size (I'm personally very annoyed to know we currently have troops stationed in over 150 countries...no, the US is not an empire, not at all *rolls eyes*) among other things.

       What I don't get is, why not play chicken with these hypocritical Republicans and present to them a balanced budget? Hell, use the NY Times game to help figure it out. Balance the budget through a mix of tax hikes and budget cuts and balance it THIS YEAR, not ten years down the road and certainly none of this "we'll halve the deficit in ten years" bullshit. What's that supposed to mean? We're never gonna pay our bills? Balance the budget this year and fucking challenge these deficit-hawk hypocrites to not pass it. All their hemming and hawing about how the deficits are killing America - make them admit they're hypocrites. They'd have to pass it or admit that it's all bullshit.

      Am I the only one who wants to play politics these days? Some days I really wish I were electable...and had a metal plate in my head like Shishio to protect against my likely assassins.

Turns out you can do it with cuts alone. I raised no taxes nor did I restore any old rates. Just cuts. See here.


This is what I personally would prefer. See here. If you would like me to explain the reasoning behind anything I've chosen, ask me in a comment.

I ACTUALLY LIKE THIS SHIT, part XIX

"Under the Water" by Merril Bainbridge

I like the description on YouTube. It points out that this song peaked at #4 in Australia but only reached #91 in the United States. Well, I guess there's no accounting for taste ^_^

This is the second track off The Garden. The track "Mouth" was the more famous of the two singles. In fact, I'm only finding out today that "Under the Water" was actually a single (yes, I own the album).

Good luck getting this song out of your head :-)

THOUGHTS I NORMALLY KEEP IN MY HEAD, part VI

      I guess I ought to be making specific tags for these entries to make it easier for me and my imagined¹ readers to read my various serial entries?

      The other day I noticed by accident that my eyes see differently or more accurately, I finally comprehended something that I had been suspicious about for some time now. I was bored and sitting in such a way that one of my hands was covering my right eye. Both eyes were still open, but I could now only see from my left eye. And it was strange, but I swear that I was perceiving the world more possessively...more...selfishly. I felt more negatively emotional, more self-aware, more focused, more arrogant, more spiteful, more intuitive, more...certain of things. And when I removed my hand, things felt normal again. It was weird, so naturally I got curious and did it again producing the same results.

       I switched eyes and then noticed I saw the world more calmly. I felt a greater sense of compassion and desire to understand. I also notice that looking at the world through only my right eye leaves me feeling weary (whereas the left eye view leaves me feeling spirited) and with a sense of sadness. I feel more responsible (in the sense of knowing what needs to be done) but it doesn't come with a sense of urgency; but rather, being burdensome.

      I've also noticed that I've been seeing the world lately more through my right eye and that it seems to be coincidentally linked to my recent rise in my overall mental state (now about two months old). Usually I feel myself left-eye dominant. I'm not using dominant correctly I don't think because every test I take suggests I am right-eye dominant. What I am referring to here is the sense of which eye I'm actually seeing from. Yes, we see through both eyes, but I've noticed that I feel as though I'm seeing more, or rather, that one eye is taking on a greater sense of the seeing leaving the other eye simply to fill out the view. When I would  feel my left eye as dominant, covering it up as described in previous paragraphs gave me the sensation of straining to see whereas leaving only the dominant eye uncovered, aside from removing depth-perception, produced no such feeling of strain (this strain/unstrained feeling is in addition to the senses described previously).  Nowadays, my right eye feels as though it is doing the work of seeing and the left eye is in support. In the past week, I've had two minor depressions (both lasting less than a day - one, in fact, lasted only six hours), and in each of those two instances, I've noticed my vision "shifting" to the left eye. I'm also "left-eyed" when angry.

      It's bizarre and I don't understand it considering that my brain's two hemispheres are connected so while each eye is connected to either side of the brain, the halves share information so it's not like one side can keep information from the other. There seems to be research that has been done which corroborates (albeit less insanely) what I'm feeling although I am cautious to apply it too liberally to what I have been writing about this entry.

      The left eye wishes to bring about suffering. The right eye, understanding. The left eye (right brain) "feels" like it is being oppressed by the right eye (left brain) and yearns to be separated from it. The left eye is the willing villain. The right eye is the reluctant hero which would endeavor to stop the left eye if the left eye could ever get a body of its own.

      The trouble with all this is that it's hard to pay attention to what it is I'm doing without risking affecting the results or worse, playing to the results. Nevertheless, I will try to notice when I'm talking to someone, which eye I'm using dominantly while speaking to them. I find I prefer being to the left of Digby when speaking to her and that would correspond to my right eye (something I've read recently suggests that I am doing myself no favors preferring to speak to her from that side); that I prefer holding the phone to my left ear which makes it harder for my left eye to see since my hand is now visible blocking some of its view; that when I'm confrontationally mad at someone, that I prefer to face them, keeping them slightly to the left of my field of view (ideal for the left eye);  and that when I'm mad but don't want there to be a yelling fight; but rather, a more "reasoned" one, I'll either keep the person to my right peripheral field or if I must face them, keep my head down with the left side tilted slightly downward (ideal or at least better for the right eye).

      I wonder now how I handle ordinary conversation? For those of you who actually speak to me face-to-face, try to notice which eye I'm looking at you with as it just may indicate the trustworthiness of the advice I am offering. Something fun to keep in mind, for the future.....

---

¹ I'm referring to people who may have found this blog and not those who were told about it

LINE OF THE DAY, part IX

      I stumbled upon a Wiki page of Anonymous quotes (use them with impunity folks!) while seeking proper attribution of the line "Don't take life too seriously...you'll never get out of it alive" when something I remembered hearing from a comedian while in college came to mind. This exchange, attributed to the movie Play It Again Sam, was found in the commentary on this site. (and for the record, it seems there is no source for the quote I was searching for)

      This made me laugh out loud. I am now seriously considering seeing this movie simply because of this exchange alone.

Allan: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollack, isn't it?

Museum Girl: Yes, it is.

Allan: What does it say to you?

Museum Girl: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.

Allan: What are you doing Saturday night?

Museum Girl: Committing suicide.

Allan: What about Friday night?

PROTRACTED ABSTRACTION ATTRACTS DISTRACTION...

      Digby's car has been repaired so it's now or I'm a coward. She's heading out to work soon and gets out at midnight. RedMom is in a relay position.

      The plan is simple: at around 10 p.m., text Digby and assertively ask her to join me tonight at a local diner for coffee [I don't drink coffee but I'm stuck with the expression] and follow it up immediately with a text to RedMom telling her that I had done so allowing her to follow-up if need be. And yes, I admit that I am nervous to do so. That's the trouble with me: everything's in my head - it's all hypotheses, conceptions, and abstractions with little reality to back it all up. I also feel a bit like Wile E. Coyote as well: I'm so used to the pursuit that I have not put any thought into what comes next after the endgame is achieved. My history suggests that I needn't worry about such things yet it still makes me nervous the thought of being caught wholly unprepared.

      That being said, I fully expect her to either not respond to my text at all or to decline the invitation. I have low prospects (given our history) of success so I am braced for that impact. I am not, however, braced for a resounding, hope-killing no which I find strange given that I am indeed a coward. You'd think anything that would actually keep me from knowing for sure exactly how unprepared I am for dating anyone let alone her; anything that would allow me to maintain the illusion, unadulterated by reality, that I can in fact enter into a relationship would be welcomed but yet, it's not, and the past three attempts threw me into ever-lengthening sinusoidal depressions whose peaks barely crossed the threshold into positivity. Something tells me that an ultimate rejection now would actually come across as a relief rather than another soul-shattering experience and again, I find that strange given that I currently have no Secondaries and haven't had any since the inception of the Digby crush.

      Either way, I look at the clock now and see I have six hours to go...





ADDENDUM: For those of you who bet on her not responding to my text at all, you win. I sent a tentative text asking her to confirm what I already knew namely, "When are you getting off work tonight? Midnight?". An affirmative response would've yielded the invitation text. Never got to happen. I didn't text RedMom since nothing happened. The plan was to inform her after Digby had said yes just so I could get an idea of whether Digby would actually be coming or if she would stand me up again. I'll see how our next few encounters at work go. If she doesn't try to stop me, next Tuesday, I'll be going straight for the invitation. After that, if nothing, I'll have to give up. I can't think of anything else... I'm fine right now because I expected this outcome. We'll see how I am next Tuesday...