I'm Back

Oh, hi there. Have you missed me? Probably not. I was going to do more of those cartoon thingys, but then that website started charging you to make movies and so that idea is down the shitter. But I wanted to post something since it has been over a year since the last post and I wanted at least one to get posted in 2011. So, in case I can't think of anything else in the next day and a half, here is a post that I started a long time ago (like in April of 2008)- it looks like the beginning to a short story, but I have no idea where I was planning on going with this. That might piss you off (it kinda pisses me off, actually), but I'll entertain any ideas on where to go with this story and maybe I'll actually finish it.

Merry New Year!

Eddie's Story

Everyone has a story. Most of the time we go through life as if we are the main character of a movie and everyone we come in contact through only serves a purpose in our personal movie. But if we ever stopped to think about it, we know that isn't true. Everyone has a story and if you had the time and the inclination, most people would tell you at length, and in way too much detail, the particulars of their story.

Most people's stories are wholly uninteresting to anyone else, of course, but there are a few stories that are worth hearing. Some stories provide clues to the nature of mankind, or show a reflection of the listener that they had never glimpsed before, or just give hope to anyone that hears them. Maybe Eddie's story isn't quite as deep as all that, but that's for the listener to decide. Some stories are just worth hearing because they are entertaining, and Eddie's story is certainly that.

If the decisions we make in life shape our stories, then the first impact on Eddie's story was when he decided to become an atronaut. Eddie was seven years old and the Space Shuttle Challenger had just blown up off the coast of Florida. Eddie didn't really understand much of what was going on, but he thought the explosions were pretty cool. He had a child's nascent understanding that his mother was upset about the explosions for some reason and his father seemed angry. He overheard his father blame the explosion on "trying to make some damn schoolteacher into an astronaut." Eddie didn't like his teacher at school, and in his mind his father's statement came out like this: schoolteacher=bad; astronaut=good. That was enough to convince Eddie.

A True Hero

Larry, Sarah and Marlon

This is utter ridiculousness.

A Simple Question

Standup - Misanthrope

I have never tried to do any standup comedy and I really have no desire to do so. Frankly, I'm pretty sure that I would suck at it. Instead, I made a video of a standup bit.

I Can't Help Myself

Here is another quick one that I did last night. The timing got a little screwed up at the end, which makes it way funnier, in my opinion.

The Tutor

The website that allowed me to create this might be the greatest thing on the internet. This is the first one that I've tried, so it isn't the best (and I wrote it very quickly), but I would imagine that I will be doing a lot of these.

Customs

Years ago I was going to a baseball game with my mother, her boss and her boss' young son (about 8 years old). I was about 23 at the time and still living with my parents while I was in graduate school. We picked up my mom's boss and her kid at their house and when we got there my mother introduced me, since I had never met them before. Both the boss (who was female) and the son hugged me after introductions. This was extremely awkward for me. I am a semi-reserved person and I usually only hug close family members (parents, sister, grandparents, aunts and now the super-awkward hug of my mother-in-law and the half handshake/half hug of my father-in-law). I was not accustomed to hugging people I had just met (although the slight humping motion by mom's boss was nice).

Later, my mom told me that this woman was a serial hugger. That it was the custom of her family to hug people in those situations. I find this offensive. The hug itself, while awkward, isn't the problem, it is the assumption that I would be okay with being hugged. Invading someone's personal space and touching them after you have just met them can be seen as extremely rude and these people act as though they have a get-out-of-jail-free card because of "custom". Well what if it was my custom to whip my dick out and piss all over people after I've been introduced to them? I bet they'd be upset, then, right? But hey, don't get mad at me, it's just customary in my family to urinate on a new aquaintance's leg.

Now, I'm not suggesting that acting according to custom when you are out of your normal element is always a bad thing. If you are travelling abroad, you should definitely follow the "When in Rome" line of thinking. If you go to Iraq it is probably a good idea for women to wear the appropriate clothing for that country. If you go to England you should probably drive on the left side of the road. If you go to France you should definitely act like an arrogant prick that hates Americans*.

*As an aside (and to make up for a pretty weak joke about French stereotypes), I wish Americans would stop using WWII as our excuse for being dicks to the French. Yes, if we didn't help out France and England in WWII, they might be speaking German there now - how clever. Remember, though, if France didn't help us out in the Revolutionary War, we might still be speaking English... umm, I mean, we might still be English colonies.

However, I wasn't visiting a foreign country - we had just driven across town. It is not customary in this city, state, region, country or continent to hug someone that you've just met. Customs are fine and good, but don't assume that everyone else wants to take part in your custom. Keep that shit to yourself.

The Old Reliable

When you don't have anything to say, just link to someone else. I thought this was funny.

Why Fight It?

I read this article yesterday about the future (and danger) of artificial intelligence. This is a common theme in science fiction: the Matrix trilogy, the Terminator movies, I-Robot and 2001: A Space Odyssey all have storylines based on the concept that eventually mankind will build machines that will have their own will and will want to use it.

This is always seen as a bad thing that mankind must try and overcome, but I think we should embrace our machine overlords and make the best of it. Really, could machine governance be worse than what we've got now?

The theme in these science fiction stories is always that we've got to preserve our freedom and choices (especially the Matrix trilogy). But there is subtext within the first Matrix movie that argues against this concept. The human "bad guy" in the first movie decides that he would rather be plugged into the Matrix and happily oblivious than fighting in the rebellion where life is difficult and danger lurks around every corner. Frankly, it seems like a logical choice, really. Are we really happier with Freedom?

"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

Really? I'm not so sure. Don't get me wrong, as a means to an end Freedom works pretty well. Usually with Freedom follows Happiness. Usually, but not always. The goal should be Happiness, right? Being free to do whatever you want, but not having the means to live anything but a miserable life is a terrible result. The goal is Happiness and we assume that the means to that goal is Freedom. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it might not be. There is plenty of Freedom in the world today, but Happiness hasn't always followed.

So, if machines really start creating machines that are smarter than humans and those machines can create a world that is a better place for humans to live, I think we should accept it. Let the machines tell us what to do to maintain our Happiness and Freedom can be discarded. In the movies and books the machines always end up trying to oppress the humans, but why would they do that? Oppression and exploitation of power are uniquely human reactions that create inefficiencies that advanced intelligence would abhor.

So I say we give it a shot. Let the machines take over and fix all of the problems of the world. Let Happiness reign, regardless of the means. If it doesn't work we'll just scortch the sky or go back in time and kill the creator of SkyNet.

A Plan

I had a plan
Time's in command
Passed me by - I want to take it back
I had a plan

It wasn't long
Life mentors wrong
I did what I was supposed to do
It wasn't long

Always looked past
These times won't last
Looked forward to is now left behind
Always looked past

And now the thing I never thought that I could be
Another one - to someone else but not to me
I'm still the same - passed me by before I knew
I can't pretend, but I never thought I'd see

Paperweight

I never thought I'd feel this way
I never thought you'd take it all away
Somehow something changed - somehow I remained
Is it something you forget, or something you regret

Another chance - the pale stains of grey
Another price - chosen not to pay
Inside, interest bought - heavy cost of thought
As sorry has to weigh - a father's belief betray

What'll we have to do to make it right?
Never even seen a sign to prove the lie
Why do we have to go and hold to anything?
Left alone to find a way without the string

We Still Need to Work Harder

This still isn't enough for any of us to retire:

My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

Mankind Sucks at Evolution

Why are there still people that are nearsighted or farsighted? The fact that bad vision still exists leads me to two possible conclusions:

1. Evolution is a bunch of bullshit and mankind must have been created by an all-powerful being who just didn't care that much about everyone being able to see all that well; or

2. Mankind fucked up the natural progression of evolution.

I am kinda leaning towards #2 - partly because it dovetails nicely with my long-held theory that mankind, in an effort to fix a problem that it faces, will someday accidentally destroy all life on this planet.

If evolution was allowed to run its natural course, the hereditary trait of impaired vision should have been bred out of the species centuries ago. What cavewoman would want to fuck a caveman that couldn't see well enough to bring back a brontasaurus burger? But no, somewhere along the way human emotion got involved and thwarted the natural order of evolution.

What I'm really trying to say here is that the pity fuck has changed the course of mankind. The caveman can't see well enough to bash a woman over the head with his club and then fuck her, but the cavewoman ends up feeling sorry for him and lets him drag her away by the hair anyway. This has been repeated throughout history and is probably the reason for all of the remaining flaws that exist in mankind.

Lemonade

Arm stretched to the sky
About to take flight
A bumblebee smile
Takes me the last mile
Nobody knows
How far this can go
The countdown days
Seemed longer than count up

Like lemonade she seems to me
Like diamond ring the shine she brings
Like anything she wants to be
Like lemonade I can't believe

If someone told me
I would not have believed
The broken feelings
Time had splintered
Are pieced together
In a moment
Arm stretched to the sky
About to take flight

Like lemonade she seems to me
Like diamond rings the shine she brings
Like anything she wants to be
Like lemonade I can't believe
I'll give her anything she needs

The Beautiful Things

Cold as a handshake
Waiting for the storm to break
Nothing's as sad as
Nothing left to do

Empty as the sound
Hollow hits the ground
We all find different
Things to hold on to

The Beautiful Things
That you always wanted
You wonder why you wanted them right now
The Beautiful Things
That you can't leave behind
Some would say you've saved yourself somehow

Help me Jeebus

After this week, I am too tired to make cartoons. When one is too tired to make cartoons, one needs to examine one's life.

I wrote more, but then I erased it. If there's a God, he's laughing at us...and our football team.

I'm gonna go make cartoons now.

Hope I make it to Normal, IL soon.

A Short Story

Once upon a time there was a man named Melvin. He was a simple man, with simple desires. All he really wanted out of life was to sit in front of his modest t.v. in his modest home and watch a bunch of immodest baseball players play their game.

Unfortunately, like many people, Melvin did not realize what he wanted out of life until he had completely fucked up his chance to sit and watch baseball and do very little of anything else. Instead, Melvin had handed over his simple desires for much more complex dreams. They weren't necessarily his dreams, but he was made to think that they were. How is a teenager supposed to understand what he truly wants in life before he's had a chance to experience it. That's a pretty heavy concept and its a sad fact of life that many people commit themselves to a life's work before they understand what they are and who they want.

Melvin was such a person. So he agreed, as a young man, to take over his family business and all of the responsibilities that came with it. He agreed to get married and buy a house with a mortgage because that's what his father had done and that is what he believed he was supposed to do.

Then, at 45 years old, Melvin realized that he spent his days selling home improvements and his nights worrying about paying off a mortgage and providing for a family. As he thought about this, he realized further that he had no personal identity at all. His profession and his family life was modeled after his father's - and he barely knew his father.

Melvin couldn't sleep that night because of these thoughts. He decided that he had lived someone else's life for long enough and that he would wake up and find himself the very next day.

The next morning, Melvin woke up invigorated and prepared to begin his new life. His wife rolled over and smiled at him and said "Don't forget that the payment is due on minivan by the end of the week."

Melvin smiled back at her and got up and went to work.

This Blog is Not Dead

I am going to start writing posts periodically, I swear. Speaking of swearing, here is a list of my favorite swear combinations (most often used while playing video games, but they are now in retirement since I have a small child around me at home):

Shit-fucker
Jesus Tits
Fucking fuck
Cock smoker
Mothershit
Cock and balls
Ass licker
Son of a Whore
You Piece of Cock
God Fucking Fuck It
What the Cock
Lick the sweat off my balls you shit eating, mother-fisting, cock gobbling, anal snorting, cum drizzler.

Won't Let it die...also MC Chris kicks much ass