Welcome, Mr. President

I had to work today, and didn't get to take time out to listen to the Inauguration address until hours later.

However, driving home from work, I got all teary eyed over the people on NPR referring to "President Obama." Somehow that shift, from President-elect, to President, brought it all home

Since then, I have been weepy eyed over the speech, over the new President's stinking adorable children, over the people who traveled for hours and days to see it happen.

Wow. For the first time in a long time it is a fucking righteous day to be in America.

Buh-bye, Bush

I can't believe it's over.

We got through eight years. Eight long, fucked up, "Brownie, you're doin' a heckuva job" years, and tomorrow they come to an end. I almost can't believe it.

The economy is terrible, and America has pissed away its good name the world over. Things are as bad as they've been in my lifetime, or the lifetime of my parents, and yet I still feel relief, because the eight year reign of terrifying, mind-bending stupidity is over.

I hear that there is some question that Bush will be able to find gainful employment after he leaves office. Being that unlike most presidents before him he's a barely literate asshat, the traditional occupations of memoir writing and public speaking might be out of reach. I would like to propose that he occupy his ample free time traveling around the country and apologizing to all of us. He can start with the families of the soldiers his lies have killed and work his way around to the rest of us.

George W. Bush, you have been a terrible fucking leader. You are a liar, a cheat, and fucking fool. When history judges your sorry ass, I can only hope that time does nothing to dim the memory of your failings. Better to remember, and not to repeat.

Too Dumb To Teach

Ok. Seriously?

If you’re so stupid that you:

1. Spend $1100 on a laptop to write papers –and-

2. Buy said laptop with an operating system you’ve never heard of –and-

3. When you prove unable to successfully operate said OS you’ve never heard of, you respond by dropping out of school rather than finding someone who can help you at, say, the computer lab . . .

THEN one can reasonably assume that your school career was not on an upward trajectory anyway.

Who The Fuck Is He Kidding?

People said, well, the federal response was slow. Don’t tell me the federal response was slow when there was 30,000 people pulled off roofs right after the storm passed. I remember going to see those helicopter drivers, Coast Guard drivers, to thank them for their courageous efforts to rescue people off roofs. Thirty thousand people were pulled off roofs right after the storm moved through. It’s a pretty quick response.

-President George W. Bush's final press conference. January 12th, 2009




Reuters/Jason Reed found at http://tinyurl.com/99r8ns\

Real timely, there George. Note the lack of WATER. And medical personnel. Note the lack of help.

George Bush has been a terrible, terrible president. A blowhard and a fool who cannot speak with the intelligence of the average college sophomore. There are so very, very many things for which to blame him.

None, though, are is incredible to me as Hurricane Katrina. I will never forget the film of the mother with her newborn sobbing to a camera crew to help her because he baby was unresponsive. The people sobbing at the Superdome. Some officious prick general talking how hard it was to get into New Orleans to Anderson Cooper of all fucking people. How Sean Penn beat Bush and most rescuers into the city.

Never have I felt more keenly ashamed of my country. Someday, when I have a child, I will sit her (or him) down, and I will tell her about the most shameful time in American history.

Fucking asshat. When the fucking secretaries from CNN and the weather monkey from Channel 5 beats you into a city, you are fucking slow. Maybe not as slow as you were in school, but slow just the same. Douche.

I'm Just Here for the Check

I can only describe my current career related mental state as being the final stage of professional grief: acceptance.

Things at Corporate Happy Fun Job are fun indeed. At present, I can best compare our management to my dating and mating habits prior to the boy:
1. Inability to learn from past mistakes
2. Noteworthy powers of denial
3. Insistence that a difference in appearance must indicate a difference in substance

Also similar? If I could go back in time, I would kick my own ass. And if I were the evil overlord, I would most assuredly be dispensing some ass kickings to the people captaining this particular ship of fools.

I have accepted that for the time being I should at least maintain at least a small amount of humility because I do have a relatively secure job, even if at times said job can best be likened to inserting pine cones into my butt. It is what it is. If I could travel back in time, shortly after I got done kicking my younger self in the head for her dating habits, I'd send her off to learn how to do something fucking useful. Alas, non. C'est la vie.

That being said, I am NOT A FUCKING IDIOT. So when I realized today that various co-workers and I were all more or less working for free in an increasingly vain effort to meet the whimsical flights of fancy--also known as goals--laid out by management, it took me approximately 30 seconds to decide that this shit was going to stop. I do, and will continue to, work my ass off. I do a difficult job and I do it well. However, it is a job. My family, my friends, my knitting, my booze, my books . . . these things are my life. My job is a Life Subsidizing Device.

What really blows me away about this entire thing is that so few of my co-workers were even really that pissed off about it. What the fuck, over? I get being afraid for one's job, but really? There is always a bum outside the blood bank looking for a handjob.

Whatever, I went and had a chat with the HR person that basically said we were being indirectly pressured to work for free. I believe she broke into a mild sweat and her butt cheeks took a bite out of her ergonomically correct office chair. That in itself was pretty much worth the conversation.

Seriously, fellow Pink Collar Wage Slaves. Repeat after me. "I am not your bitch."

Mad Dining Skillz

I love to cook. After a shitty day at work, filled with failure and stupidity, I can come home and do something that 1. makes me feel reasonably competent, and 2. reasonably productive.

Also, whereas at work everything I do counts as pearls before swine, here at least The Boy will appreciate my efforts.

Further, new skills I learn at work inevitably only open doors to new and interesting wells of suffering. Very rarely does a new cooking skill leave me wishing I'd never heard of it, and in the rare instance it does, you can bet your ass I won't be using it long.

Like cream sauces. The secret, I now know, is that I need to be much less of a chickeshit when it comes to heat. Big fire, don't turn around, whisk. Who knew?

Don't answer that.

Getting Here From There

A few weeks ago for shits and giggles, I decided to add a Stat Counter to this blog. I have it invisible because 1. I don't really care for them much on pages, and 2. I have some dignity and don't need anyone to see how paltry the visit count is, and 3. I don't want any of my two or three regular readers to realize how un-fucking cool I really am and be scared back into the ether.

I get a few hits from places I recognize as belonging to people I know. I also get a lot of shit from, like, India--I suppose most of those kind souls are concerned about the size of my penis and would like to help me enlarge it.

My favorite, though, are the random search strings. A couple folks arrived here after searching for "Bommarito Nissan." Hi guys! If you found this after googling Bommarito Nissan, all I can say is FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY DO NOT DO THAT TO YOURSELF. Life is too short, and frankly, you'd be better off walking--which now that I think about it is what you're likely in for if you go to them for service. Just saying.

The other common theme I'm finding is people who are searching for answers to various grammatical questions. God help them if they find it here. While I can as needed deploy a heaping helping of Queen's English in the service of good, here I mostly don't concern myself with many of the niceties of grammar. Whatever poor bastard takes his or her writing tips from this blog is in a world of fucking hurt. Vulgar, nasty, ill-willed fucking hurt to be exact.