drunkencomputing

Well I just really am bitchy.  Before Wisconsin voted to adopt a state-wide smoking ban, I was all for it.  Now that it’s happened, I don’t want it to happen.  It’s not that I condone smoking in bars or restaurants, it’s just that I don’t think the state Government should be telling us what to do.  There’s is, of course, many sides to this story, and I’ll attempt to highlight the ones that I think are valid, but for the most part, it’s simply not right.

First of all, I like not having smoking in bars and restaurants all over.  I like my clothes not smelling like cigarette smoke when I leave some place, and nothing is more disgusting than trying to eat while someone is smoking a cigarette and knocking ash on the table.  There are certainly health risks that are also being mitigated which I should highlight as another “good thing”, but I would be a big hypocrite if I did so since I enjoy the occasional cigarette or cigar.  So I’m OK with bars and restaurants being smoke-free because of the reasons above.  But there’s a caveat to that.

When I go to a bar, I’m going to enter that bar with the assumption there’s going to be things I won’t like there.  Whether it be the beer selection, the wait staff, or the fact that you can smoke there, I assume that this is the bar owner’s given right to have (or not have) those things.  If I didn’t like the fact that there’s smoking there, I should go somewhere.  It’s no different than if I don’t go to a mexican restaurant because I don’t like mexican food.  For you to go into a mexican restaurant and expect chinese food is extremely egotistical.  You therefore make a conseous decision not to go there because you don’t want mexican food. Same thing: I’m not going to go to The Anchor bar because I don’t want to be around smokers when I eat.

Am I off with this?  Aren’t we catering to some group of peoples’ arrogant views of how the public should behave?  If I don’t like the color yellow, I should ask the state to step in and color all school buses another color?  Am I not on the same train of thought?

Now this whole feeling is contingent upon the state being the one who is pushing the reform.  They are entitled to banning smoking in state parks and state buildings, because they own them.  Just as I am allowed to ban people from smoking in my house because I own my house.  But the state doesn’t own peoples’ bars or restaurants.  Are they going to tell me that I can’t allow people to smoke in my house now?  They have just as much ownership in my house as they do in a bar down the street.  So that’s wrong.

Then there’s the flip side.  If it’s not the state doing the smoking ban unto us, and is only bending to the will of an overwheling consensus, then, my friends, we have democracy in action.  If there’s 51% of the state that wants smoking banned, then it’s the state’s job to ban smoking.  It’s tough titties to bar and restaurant owners.  So if there’s a majority of Wisconsin residents out there that are for the state stepping in and stopping people from smoking in the Anchor bar, then God bless the fucking US of A.  We can’t seem to get together to stop a war that the vast majority of the country opposes, but we’re all about showing how naive we are by asking the state to protect our nice sweaters from smoke-smell.  God bless the fucking US of A.  The smoker’s lost this one fair and square, if that’s the case, because they shoulda organized together, sent letters, or protested or something (super-side note: can you imagine that protest?  They could do a smoke-out in front of the state capitol.  Get it?  Oh no, they can’t.  What an ineffective protest that would be.  They’d only be there with the signs for 30 minutes at a time, followed by 15 of no one there because they are all off the state campus ON A SMOKE BREAK.  Woo!)  There’s no smoker-only organizations that I know of, so tavern leagues and restaurant owner’s associations should of started lobbying if they didn’t want the state to come in and start telling them what to do.  So if a bar owner says “the ban is unconstitutional,” I’m gonna wanna hear a timeline of what they did to prevent it.  Otherwise, again, it’s just democracy in action.

It’s also true to say that the state has a responsibility to protect the health and well-being of it’s citizens, but I wave this statement off it’s brought to my attention.  If the state actually gives a shit about our health and well-being, why aren’t they trying to keep jobs in our towns?  Notice I’m not asking for new jobs, just to keep the scare amounts we have.  And if the state cares about our health, why not repair the fucking terrible highways that lace the state.  More people die by disappearing into the giant pot holes on highway 35 than they do of lung cancer in Superior.  True story.  Google it.  The fact is that it’s easy for them to enforce a smoking ban and feign interest in the “public health” while doing so and collecting more cash in fines to the business owners who think the ban is wrong.  Patching pot holes costs money.  Keeping jobs in the state requires intelligence.  Banning smoking in privately-owned facilities takes a pen stroke and fierce words.

So if you asked me, straight up, whether I’m for or against the smoking ban, I’d shrug.  I like non-smoking establishments, but I hate the execution of the idea.  If a bar or restaurant owner chooses to go smoke free, that’s the way it should be. They are the ones that get to decide in their establishment, hopefully based off the feedback they get from their customers.  Not the state who has no idea what’s going on out there.  So yeah, I guess I’m against the smoking ban.  Final answer.

I don’t understand some email sign-offs people use.  I think they are necessary, because email is just another type of dialog, so saying “good bye” or “have a great day” is essential…not only because it’s polite, but because it’s the FIN in the ACK/SYN/FIN handshake process that normal communication follows.  But nowadays, I’m seeing people with the stupidest email sign-offs…making me think that they are now more of formality.
Nowadays, people are getting exotic with their email sign-offs, and as they get more exotic, they get stupider and less poignant.  Today I got one from someone saying “My Best,”.  What the flipping FUCK does that mean?  Does this person, when taking leave from someone they may bump into on the street end the conversation with “my best!”?  If they do, I will punch them in the face.  OK, maybe not punch them in the face, but at least as them—I’m serious on this—call them out on what the fuck that means.  I really thought that it couldn’t get any worse than the canned “Kindest regards,” I got from someone else.  Every email, no matter what, was signed “Kindest regards.”  Talk about cheapening the effect.  What’s wrong with just your “kind regards,” which I still don’t know what those are even.

There’s been other, moronic email sign offs.  They bother me more than my other pet email peeve (well, one of the other TWO pet email peeves—the big one being never answering emails), which are useless quotes in an email signature.  What the fuck do I care if you quote Shakespeare or Patton at the end of an email?  Am I supposed to think you are intelligent because you got a quote you like off Wikipedia?  You know what would make you seem smarter in an email?  Spell-checking and grammar-checking, you fucking hypocrite moron.

But I digress.  In the day and age of neglectful emailing, the email signoff should take on more importance.  At least to me it should.  People can avoid emails and say “they never got them,” or that “they were too busy” and the sender of the email can’t doubt them.  So the email sign off has to exude sincerity as a way to entice people to respond to your message.  For instance, a popular one that I use—that I think has tons of legitimate, non-canned sincerity to it, is “thanks in advance for your replies.”  I feel as if this sign-off almost shames the recipient into a response.  Sometimes I’ll spice up that sign-off by wrapping it up in a final sentence, but still adding finality to the last statement in my message.  If I’m not eliciting a response back from an email, I simply say “have a great day,” which I mean, especially if I’m responding to someone’s response that I wanted.  Again, going back to my original point, it’s just common courtesy, and it’s a way of saying “I’m done talking to you now.

Of course, as another digression, there are those people who go way too deep on their email sign offs, and refer to people by name in their own emails.  Such as if I’m emailing Buddah, and I’m a renowned fakey-email-sign-off-er, I’d say something like, “thanks, Buddah, for your help, and have a great day.”  Really, why say “Buddah” in your email.  The email is addressed to Buddah, so why would I need to reiterate that?  That annoys me too.

Most of this is all directed toward the professional emailer, not the casual emailer (like emailing back and forth between friends or between girlfriend & boyfriend).  For casual emails, I’ll still sign off an email like I would the end of a conversation with a friend, such as “later” or “peace.”  But that’s the exact same thing I’d say to a friend if I was leaving them for the night.  I certainly don’t say “my best” to them.  How fucking stupid that is.

So I’m done ranting about something that is completely not a major issue.  Instead, I should be ranting about how fucked we are as a nation.  But why bother, there are plenty of other pundits in the blogosphere to do that.  I’d rather bitch about the small things in life…hey, it’s what I do.  So don’t sign off your emails like an idiot, or you’ll hear from me.

Not so long ago, just after the DNC and RNC got done, I knew who I was going to vote for for president.  I was pretty confident in my decision, but then almost immediately my confidence started to erode away.  Then tonight, driving back from work, I was no longer sure who I wanted to vote for.  I found myself balancing the issues and the people and really couldn’t shake out an answer.  I felt like it was 2004 all over again, and I couldn’t decide what poison I wanted to swallow for the next four years.

The battle went back and forth for me in my head: I’m a registered republican, but identify more with democrats.  I hate the republican party but don’t like most democrats.  I hate right-wing views on personal issues, but value their opinions on national interest.  I like democratic views on personal issues, but don’t think they have ANY opinions on national interest.  I think republicans are elitists, but I also think democrats are disillusioned.

That last one is going to get me in trouble.  I’m sure I’ll hear a few comments back on this post, but more than likely they’ll come directly at my face from someone else.  It’s for this reason I’ve abstained from politics for so long on this blog: I don’t want backlash.  But it’s too late now, it’s out there.  But can’t you see?  I’m not picking sides…I’m trying to find my side.

So republicans are rich, stingy fuckers who only care about themselves.  That’s how I feel, for the most part.  They have severly twisted views on personal issues that they should completely butt the fuck out of.  Who cares who you marry, who you fuck, if you don’t want to keep a baby, etc.  These are personal issues, not Governmental issues.  Democrats have the right views on these issues: let the people decide what they want.  You want to marry a dude and your a dude?  Give ‘er shit.  You want to have an abortion?  Well, you can…because it’s your choice.

So here’s where the democrats are disillusioned: these personal issues aren’t what makes a political platform.  It’s what gets you votes, but a serious voter doesn’t vote because out of 10 issues you stand for, I agree with 8 of them.  Each issue has a weight to it.  If you only agree with two issues, but they are more important (or more “weighty” issues, to stick with the analogy), and those out weigh (woo!) the rest of the 8 less-important (weighty) issues, then that’s who I’m voting for.  Currently, the democrats are letting their guard down on important (weighty) issues and making some bad decisions while pushing their feelings on the less weighty decisions.

Right now, I don’t care as much about gay marriages, abortions, etc. as I do about THIS COUNTRY right now.  Gay marraige and abortions, legal drinking ages, and other non show-stopping issues won’t about to shit if this country continues to swirl it’s way down the toilet.  We’re in debt up to our eyes, and it’s only growing daily.  For example, did you know all of now own not only a mortgage company, but also an INSURANCE company too?  It’s true!  We might also bail out a car company as well.  We can’t even afford to finance that war we’re in, and we’re buying companies??  Who’s going to buy our debt we when can’t afford to sustain any more?

I can’t afford to drive any more.  I pay 25% more for the same groceries I bought last year.  My taxes keep going up.  I’m not sure if I’m going to have a sufficient retirement plan when and if I get to retire.  I’m more worried about these issues right now.  Not the other stuff that I’ll work on changing once I’m assured my country is going to crap the bed on me.

The democrats are losing ground with me because they aren’t fixing the issues that are important to me (you run the congress, let’s make some better decisions please).  They aren’t selling the good stuff they were a mere few months ago for me to pick up their brand for four years.  The republicans are the ones who are (mostly) to blame for our current state of affairs.  That pushes me back to the democrats side again.  But the republicans are starting to sell their brand more geniunly and are giving–please take note, democrats–SOLUTIONS to the issues *I* want resolved.  So I’m back in the middle again.

I’m hesitant to say I’m going to vote republican because they still don’t align fully with the issues I care about.  They do have plans to fix the major issues I care about.  I’m also hesitant to say I’m going to vote democratic because they’ve lost their focus on the issues entirely.  They’ve done it before, and they’re starting to do it again.  So I’m in the middle here.

Some one toss me a lifeline.  Can I ask the audience?  Better yet, can I phone-a-non-partisan-friend?

This past weekend I only had one thing to do: think freely.  So I did.  While camping with Rachael, that’s all I did.  When I got home, messing around on the computer, that’s all I did too.  The only thing really valuable I could come up with is that everything we do in life can be made easier, but in the end, we’re still too fucking busy.

While camping, I took out my dinnerware: a collapsible titanium spork, a squishy bowl, and a folding plate.  All-in-all, everything weighed about 3/4 of a pound.  It all collapsed down (or with the squishy bowl, squished down) into a tiny, tiny space.  Ironically, while I got out the dinnerware, two people at a campsite down the trail from us walked by with a tub full of camping gear.  They were packing up their car to leave, and then they came back…and carried back another tub…and another tub…and a suitcase…and then another tub.  It made me think of what their dinnerware must include: a real damn porcelain plate, real silverware?  A full-on table cloth and spaghetti strainer?  This is all fine and acceptable when you’re at home, but when you’re camping?  Why torture yourself and lug all that crap around when you can have the convenience and functionality of the same dinnerware I currently have?

Seeing these people lugging oversized gear made me think back of our first camping trips years ago and how we brought–I shit you not–cast-iron pans to cook on.  These things weighed like 25 pounds, at least.  We’d cook over slow, ineffective fires with them.  We soon upgraded from the cast-iron skillets to a gas-burning portable stove and a light-weight titanium pot.  These worked well…the gas-burning stove was small and portable, and the light-weight titanium pot was at least…lightweight, but both took up a lot of space in a backpack.  Then we discovered JetBoils and freeze-dried food.  We had upgraded the process of cooking meals while in the backcountry twice in the span of a year…saving space and weight, and ultimately time and energy.

Similarly, I came home after camping, I found a ton of software upgrades waiting for me, including a Picasa upgrade (both to the client and to the web application), and some upgrades to some Blackberry software.  With the new Picasa3 upgrade, things I had to do manually (such as searching for, and deleting, duplicate pictures, was now automated.  Auto-tagging names and locations was now done automagically for me.  The manual process of looking up the GPS location in Google Earth, appending it to the photos XX amounts of time, was now history.  Picasa could also go through and auto-tag people by their faces, too (scary).  I didn’t have to go one-by-one through each photo and do it any more (get the net, Facebook photo application!)

Life keeps getting easier.  Just as in IT (see above), non-computer functions can be improved upon too (see camping example above).  But while life keeps getting easier, doesn’t life keep getting more INVOLVED as we adapt?  Even though these things are miniscule, small process upgrades exist all around us and happen day-in, even without us knowing it (a speed limit change on Minnesota interstates from 65 to 70 a few years back is an example of one of these upgrades…and what a change it makes).  But as we become more efficient, the tasks we’re given in life seem to keep piling up.  We have to constantly find ways to improve the way we accomplish these tasks, but when we do, another task appears.

I want some more free time back…like in high school, when I didn’t do shit.  I’m organized and efficient, but I can’t seem to keep my head above water sometimes.  Maybe I just need an upgrade on the 24-hours-in-a-day thing.

‘Cause I’m the mother fuckin’ captain, bitch!  Want to do 100% of the work expected of you, plus an extra 25% because you actually might give 1/3 of a fuck about your job?  Want to get recognized for 0% of it, but get treated like a complete shithead?  You’re on the right track!

The selfish/cocky/too-stupid-to-realize-it/just-plain-don’t-give-a-fuck-about-you train will leave the station approximately 25 minutes after the Underappreciated Express and will arrive at the same time, riding your coat tails.  But wait, they’ll also demand everything from you and leave you with nothing…not even self-dignity!  Get the bags!

Both trains leave with destinations to Work, Home, and Friendship.  The only place we don’t arrive at is Family.  Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

If you are are unsure which train you need to take, please ask the station attendant and he’ll point you in the right direction.