March 2003

Lisa’s friend, Ron, is a really stupid person. It’s his type of gung-ho attitude that makes me realize why protestors are a good thing. I hate to think what kind of shit we could get into with these kind of Neanderthals acting without thinking.

This fool posts a pretty nice list of terrorist attacks that tells me exactly Jack and Shit about the current conflict. Yet another example of people spouting catchy phrases and anecdotes without caring to educate themselves or others. I understand that this Ron guy is implying that taking out Iraq will strike a blow to terrorism — it’s a pretty common claim nowadays and a link that I hope is made crystal clear when this is over — but exclaiming that protestors should “grow up and show some gratitude” isn’t an intelligent argument. Not that they should be expected from someone who thinks that renaming French Fries is a good idea. Go regurgitate some more sound bytes, buddy.

After reading much of this Sherpa-like tripe, I’m starting to warm up to the latest hippie chant: “Support our troops, bring them home.” One can hardly argue that waving a few flags is making our troops safer than exploring other alternatives while they’re safe at home.

Of course, I’ve said it before: I’m not totally opposed to the war either. Especially with people like this running around. I was wondering when I’d be able to sleep soundly, knowing that the world’s problems were well on their way to being solved; it looks like that day has come. I feel secure knowing that the same people who have cured cancer are tackling the other seemingly-impossible challenges of our day. Energy workers unite!

There are a lot of things that really bother me about this war. After all, it’s just about one of the worst things that can happen despite what kind of spin you put on it — and believe me they do. Every pro-war lunatic touts the humanitarian aspect or screams about remembering September 11th, as they themselves have seen the direct link between Saddam and terror. Every anti-war lunatic chants nothing but “No War For Oil” and doesn’t care to think that maybe, just maybe, that stopping Saddam would be a good thing in the long run for national security.

The most frustrating part about talking about the war is that almost everyone is absoultely positive about what we should or should not be doing. There is no question in their mind, and I think that’s bullshit. There’s a world of gray out there and no one cares to explore it anymore. Geof made a good point on his blog about how everyone keeps asking the protestors to put aside their beliefs for a while and agree to support our troops. He’s right by asking, What the hell is that all about? There is never a point where we should stop questioning our actions. Constant and ongoing evaluation is an important part of everyday life and should apply to the war as well.

anti-war

I’ve heard and read a lot of stupid things about the attack on Iraq. First, there’s the military spin: calling it Operation Iraqi Freedom and downplaying the fact that there are a lot of Iraqi casualties. If there is going to be a skirmish, I can accept that there will be casualties; but Armed Forces spokesmen are going out of their way to show video clips about how precise our attacks are, but completely ignoring the fact that there are going to be civilians in government buildings and people killed by errant missles attacks.

Also, these goddamn flag-wavers who cry about the World Trade Center don’t give a second thought to what caused all this. I’m not going to use the silly argument that attacking Iraq will increase terrorist attacks, because I know that not doing much of anything has already provoked plenty over the years. There is, however, something to be said for the fact that Muslim radicals do have a point: there are “infidels” in their holy land. As unreligious as I am, I can see how having non-Muslims walking through — and not caring about how it might make some people feel — such a sacred place would make me want to bomb some shit. All this talk about freedom of religion is just lip service if we aren’t willing to respect Muslims in their own part of the world, no matter how maniacal their leaders may be. Simply understanding where the anger is coming from instead of spouting patriotic slogans and other trip would help to bridge a lot of gaps.

Throw into the mix something I heard from one of my co-workers, actually it was echoed by more than a few: “I say bomb them, civilians and all. What do I care about a bunch of Iraqis?” It made me want to puke. Sure, I believe that people are responsible to and for themeselves, and are somewhat responsible for the actions of their government no matter what form it takes. But to be that callous about death and war takes serious ignorance. This co-worker’s shitty excuse was, “Hey, my friend’s over there fighting for us and all I care about is her safety.” I fail to see what a soldier following orders has to do with the politics of being over there in the first place, but work wasn’t the place to hash out such arguments.

pro-war

That being said, there’s a lot of messed-up people out there in the world fighting for the other side. Lunatics lying in the streets instead of sitting in libraries, ignorant of reality. I see how “business as usual” during a war could make these protestors sick, but when it comes right down to it we’re probably doing more good than harm regardless of our possibly dubious intentions.

How many of these lazy, bandwagon-jumping potheads or their ringleading professional protestors were in Amnesty International? I’m guessing that it’s more than a few. And like it or not, having Saddam out of power is probably a good thing for the starving people of Iraq, and what’s going on right now is a hell of a lot quicker than some stupid letter-writing campaign. The best way to speak out against our shitty, ultraconservative child-president is to not vote for him in two years. For now, the protestors should consider that even if there are only vague excuses for going to war, the Iraqi people will probably be better off for it.

…

The only thing I’m sure of is how much I disapprove of people who are sure. People aren’t discussing a whole hell of a lot anymore, just spouting rhetoric and slogans. Whether it’s “Our soldiers are over there dying for your right to protest!” or “No war for oil!”, people have chosen their stupid slogans and are chanting them as loud and as often as they possibly can. I don’t think we should all “just put aside our differences and support our troops” now that their over there. I do think, however, that people should shut the hell up. There are too many people sleeping soundly, confident that they know what’s best for everyone. Maybe I’m just jealous.

So the Iraqis have American prisoners now. Everyone demands and expects that they’ll be treated humanely, and I don’t get it. Is bombing humane? Was it humane when other soldiers were killed instead of captured?

I see a case for being humane to soldiers that surrender because they’ve given up and don’t want to fight anymore — they’re set out of the game until it’s over. But soldiers that are very much still in the fight deserve what they get.

And yes, I think it’s that simple. I think what the U.S. is doing is something that had to be done sooner or later, that eventually Saddam could have become the next Hitler. But to hear Bush cite the Geneva Convention when he ignored the U.N. makes me wonder. He shouldn’t be able to pick and choose by which rules the U.S. should abide.

If Americans are captured, I’m sorry but they are willing participants in the armed struggle, willing because they joined the armed forces for better or worse. They will probably be killed and its a shame, but no one can demand anything of the Iraqis at this point.

My hands are all scratched up from playing with the cat. It was all in fun but I don’t play nearly as rough as Csoki Tej does.

After working overtime on Monday and Tuesday, and barely getting out in time on Wednesday for dinner at the Sherman’s, I’m sitting at work with very little to do. I wish the work was spaced out a little better over the course of the week, but that’s on-demand printing for you. Repeated requests for something to do yielded nothing; it doesn’t seem like anyone else is terribly busy either. I briefly read about the war on CNN and Fox News, but wanted to see what the other online rags had dug up so far. Unfortunately, according to the company’s Internet access software,

“WARNING! Access to this web page is restricted.
Reason: “The Internet category ‘Tasteless’ is blocked.”

Oh well, you can’t win them all.

I thought I lost my credit card yesterday. I guess I did lose it, just not at the gym like I thought I had. It was in the pocket of my other pants since I had gotten gas before my workout instead of after, but when I got to Bally’s after work to check the locker I used they gave me a hassle. When they asked for my ID, I assumed it was because soemone had turned it in and they wanted to make sure I was actually Bob Rudderow. Instead, they wanted proof that I was a member — they scanned the card and said, “go on in.” I doubt that people use the “I think I left my credit card in my locker this morning” excuse often to exercise for free or snoop around the locker room. At the very least, they could have shown a little more concern and offered to escort me back there for a quick check rather than make me run out to my car in the rain. Yet another reason why a lifetime membership anywhere is a big mistake.

I called The Big Talker 1210 today, only because a state senator was on the phone and I wanted to see what he had to say about the Pennsylvania Cookie Bills. I read about them on Lisa’s blog during a break at work, and they quickly became the talk of the office.

The bills were shelved after September 11th, but somehow it was deemed appropriate to reintroduce them when we’re preparing for war with Iraq. The congressman hung up before I was let through, but the producer said to bring it up anyway. Jeff Katz had a good laugh about it anyway and I expressed how I felt about the war — 45 seconds of excitement after 5 minutes on hold.

The funny thing about reading the article at work was that I started out thinking “What a bunch of idiots!”, but by the end the only thing on my mind was “They’d better not choose the sugar cookie as my state cookie!” Everyone in the office agreed as well.

Chris, Lisa and I made the trek out to Phoenixville last night to have dinner at Brad and Jeanette’s place (which is absolutely gorgeous, by the way). I feel bad that I didn’t bring a bottle of wine or something, but after driving 100 miles that day I wasn’t thinking too clearly. It didn’t take long for me to relax once I was there though; we were given the tour of the estate: the pool, the garden, the screened-in area underneath the deck, the handful of rooms in the basement that resulted from addition after addition by the previous owners. Ian galavanted about with Lisa and his other toys until he went to bed and we had dinner, stuffed shells a la Bradford.

It was decided that we need to spend more time at Lisa’s grandmother’s beach house this summer and that Brad and Jeanette should come too, especially now that Ian’s almost old enough to enjoy the beach.

Back to this house of theirs, though. It’s perfect. Everything right down to the spice rack built into the wall was nice and homey. I definitely felt slight pangs of jealousy, but in a good, I-can’t-wait-to-have-this sort of way. (You see Maria, when you have a two-income household these are some of the things you can accomplish.) We almost didn’t even make it, since they no longer live at the address I had for them. Luckily their phone number was the same and they only lived a few blocks away; if either wasn’t the case, we would have had to turn back.

Anyway, I had a really great time and look forward to having the busy couple up to Oxford Valley some weekend. Maybe even indoctrinate them into our little board game cult.

Oxford Valley’s newest giant-warehouse type store, The Dump, opened recently and apparently everyone’s heard about this but me. I saw a billboard about it a while ago but didn’t give it much thought. Lara knew it was a furniture store, Lisa knew it was only open on the weekends, Al said people were coming all the way from Lancaster to shop there, and Mary’s been so anxious about going she’d kill Al if she knew we went without her.

So today, we went there. It was after Al spent an hour putting up with me while I learned how to stick shift in his Volvo. I just wasn’t getting it, but he was extremely. We took a break to eat and take Dia shopping, and driving around the Oxford Valley mall parking lot it finally started to click. I could even handle small hills. I’ll need lots more practice before I’m ready to buy a manual transmission car, but I feel like I made definite headway. Al’s a real stand-up guy for showing me the ropes. I don’t know many people who would take the time (and let their car take the wear and tear) to teach someone how to shift. My dad still doesn’t fancy the idea of me driving around in his SHO and Rob has qualms about fitting more than three people in his Civic lest it “degrade performance”.

Then again, Rob is the guy who’s making a few hundred dollars from a Nintendo Game Cube scam and has the nerve to try to sell me one for $100. I usually consider a friend as someone who I wouldn’t dream of making money off of, but maybe that’s just me. I shouldn’t be surprised; caring and sharing aren’t qualities Rob is known to have. Maybe I’m just bitter that I got my hopes up about getting a discounted system only to find out I was being treated like a regular customer. Anyway, the details are he’s scamming American Express by buying Game Cubes at half price thatnks to a pricing typo on F.A.O. Schwartz’s web site; AmEx pays him the difference between the price paid and the cheapest listed price. So Rob makes money by selling the consoles on eBay. I wish him the best in taking advantage of the corporate America he loves so much.

Along this new vein of getting dumped [on], I’d also like to express my disgust at Sean for flaking out for the last time. I’ve have been so disappointed in a friend in years. Move way out to Voorhees — fine; say you can’t join us when you’re invited somewhere — that’s disappointing, but okay. But to say, “Hey, I’ll be there in bit,” only to drop off the face of the earth an hour later? I’m angry with myself for taking this long to realize you’re really not worth my time.

It would have been interesting to start the St. Patty’s Day drinking at 10:00 a.m. like the rest of the drunks, but maybe next year. At least I got to see the revelry before heading over to Chris and Lisa’s for board games. Ross, Lara, and I were supposed to meet a friend of his at the Blarney Stone, but as he’d been drinking all morning he was at home asleep. Our plan to meet up with the Puzoccis were thus moved up a bit. The large section of street fenced in to accomodate the excessive drinking was mighty tempting, but we resolved to return later.

We made a quick stop at a [Ye Olde] Wine & Spirits Shoppe for some supplies, i.e. two bottles of Arbor Mist wine, a large bottle of pre-made Mudslides and a “big small” flask of vodka. We got to the counter and the clerk commented, “Wow, a real I.D. this time.” The two girls in front of us were clearly under age and were explaining their T-shirts. I contend that a green shirt with the phrase “Fuck me I’m Irish” written in big letters needs no explanation. Furthermore, I don’t think it “makes more sense when [she and her friends] are all wearing them together” — we all get the picture loud and clear honey, you’re not disguising the fact that you’re a frat tramp. They proceeded to pay in singles, meaning that they were at least getting paid. Who needs high-class hookers when you’ve got St. Patrick’s Day?

Once we got to Park Towne the three of us, with a little help from Lisa, pretty much finished what we bought (minus the vodka) during two games of KKK and Apples to Apples. Tim and his friend Ian joined us at some point and he drove us over to Cavanaugh’s, where things were calmer than they were earlier that afternoon: fewer police, empty bar-crawling buses, and way-sparser crowds. There was one among the crowds that caught my eye, the voluptuous Jenna Vebrosky. My old flame Maureen Michaels was there too, but hey — she wasn’t on the 1998-99 trading card I had in my wallet. After a period of waffling, I walked over and asked her for her autograph. It was sweet as all hell, that look on her face. Her shock was a perfect blend of surprise, flattery, and horror. It was cool having three hot chicks gathered around asking why the hell I carried this card with me. The answer incidentally, is far less interesting than I should have made it out to be. I could have told her that the was the object of my limitless desire and I follow her everywhere she goes. The real story is that it was in a book I read a long time ago, it fell out when Dia was reading it, and I didn’t want to throw away a perfectly good Hot Girl picture. Instead, I played it safe; they were all with their boyfriends and I really did want my card back, signature or no. The only other thing I got out of my adventure — besides the autograph of course, made out to Chris Puzak — was a good ten seconds of staring as far down Jenna’s shirt as I could without actually crawling inside. (I’ll use my drinking to cover up the fact that I’m a lech.) I’m so ashamed that I didn’t try to use the beads Lisa gave me either.

The night ended at the New Deck tavern where we had wings and cheese fries before heading home. The night was still full of promise even as it was winding down. I tried to steal an inflatable shamrock that was hanging from a light, but I abandoned the effort and turned around to see a waiter right behind me. A truck almost turned the wrong way down 33rd Street and pulled onto the sidewalk to do his U-turn. Geof called to say he was in the city and ready to party hearty, but he didn’t know that most of the drinking was done already. However, what he told me over the phone was probably the most interesting story of the night.

Everyone’s favorite Triangle hothead, who shall remain nameless until I’m told otherwise, lost it again. Enraged at something stupid, he smashed a monitor down on a desk, tore up the articles on the board, and threw a pile of papers across the room. My source also tells me that Mr. Hothead posted some private Triangle correspondence to the message boards but they had it deleted almost immediately.

The night’s events having been posted, I should now get ready for my manual transmission driving lesson with Al.

Dia has the worst luck with group work in school. I’m sure her domineering, “gung-ho school” bravado has something to do with it, but her classmates always end up dropping the ball. I was in her group once and she let us dump most of the work on her, but that still didn’t mean that the members of our group were any less stupid.

The latest debacle came in her Learn by DUing class (it’s one of the 35 credits she needs to get her second degree, this time in Accounting). This soror-o-whore who’s been giving the group excuses about why she’s done jack shit — “Anyone who’s ever pledged a sorority knows that they put you through hell!” — pulled the lamest trick in the book. She copied her entire part of the group paper from a Web site.

I’ve come close to doing that once for a Biology paper, where I took an article on pH level in water and inserted parts that turned it into a paper about making a successful fish tank. My excuse, though, is that it was a lame (though required, lest I fail) paper worth ten percent of 10% of my grade — hardly worth caring about at 3 a.m. the night before.

This bitch is different though. This was a major, term-long assignment and the grades of three of her classmates were riding on her decision. Dia caught it only because she knew the girl was incapable of forming coherent arguments. After a deplorable first paragraph, the next four pages were perfection. Dia entered a few key phrases into Google and came up with an article that matched this girls report exactly, without even the slightest rearrangement.

Instead of ratting her out like she should have, Dia confronted Sumy because she wanted to crush any denial or argument. The soror-o-whore responded meekly that she’d work on it some more, and Dia was so surprised that she didn’t go for the jugular.

The new version consisting of original work was so bad that Dia had to make some suggestions and return it to her to work on some more. One of her suggestions was going to be to avoid using fifth-grade sentences and make them a little longer. Of course, she scratched that suggestion when this little gem popped up further along:

“I also propose that St. Josephs develop a relationship with a lot of Greek Organizations especially the ones that are associated with Drexel University. This will be a win win situation because Greek fraternities/sororities are always looking to do community service because they require mandatory and personal hours for be in it, so this will be a great opportunity for St. Josephs to get good quality and free work done and the Greek fraternities/sororities can also get their hours in.”

That about does it for tonight, now I have a headache.

I’m finally getting down to business. I was able to clean and organize the crap in the apartment because of our new filing cabinet, my workout schedule is in full swing now that I’m going to an abs class twice a week, and I’m set to work on my T-square projects.

The only complaints I have nowadays center on my lack of a social life. The weekends seem to be the only time that I don’t have to pull teeth to hang out with friends. I know that it can’t all be spontaneous fun and games forever, but getting people together shouldn’t be as difficult as it’s been lately. I’m not sweating it too much, since the sleepyheads should wake up around summertime like they usually do, but for now it’s mildly irritating. It’s also got my thinking I should do something to find some additional friends, say at a small, independent newspaper somewhere?

We’ve adopted a poisonous cat. When I play with her and she gently wrestles my hand, she never fails to sink her fangs into my hand. Why else would I get huge, red welts? It’s also well documented that I like to blow my nose a lot, so the two can’t possibly be symptomatic of allergies. Ah, the things I do for love.

I forgot my camera last weekend, but I would have gotten a lot of great photos if I hadn’t:

Interior shots of an abandoned car on the side of the highway. Greg and I noticed the car on the other side of the unmarred guard rail early Saturday morning, and Ross broke down at the exact spot later that night. There wasn’t anything particularly interesting about it other than it that we couldn’t figure out how it got to where it was without flattening the rail. Pat figured out later that it was snow banks, but that night it wasn’t the puzzle that was fun, but exploring on the side of a major highway.

A picture of the bottom of Al’s waffle. The waitress brought our favorite vegan his breakfast under a mound of bacon and eggs, and he politely told her that he’d actually like another one. When it came back, I dared him to look at the underside and Al was pissed to see that my hunch was right — the kitchen scraped off the animal carcasses, flipped over the waffle and added a new pat of butter. The waitress brought him a brand new one when he told her he wasn’t hungry anymore, but I’m not sure if he was charged or not.

Dance Dance Revolution. Tomas’s methodical thinking works faster than his dance groove, which is surprisingly caucasian when you get right down to it. Still, he was able to trounce Lisa, me, and even Pat who gave it a whirl. Also trashed was a posse of homegirlz who were overconfident in their ability to shake their booties. One lady even told one of the kids that if she was upstaged by Tomas she wasn’t going to get any dinner. Everybody was laughing pretty heartily, so much in fact that most of them missed me trounce some kid who challenged me to a game of air hockey.

A pregnant Maria. No immaculate conception here, the seed of our Lil’ Joe had a hand in this one, or so one would hope.

Tetsuo the Iron Van. We made it down in one piece with Greg behind the wheel the whole time, and he even put up with the new curtains in the back window. We didn’t get in much BetaBrite-ing but I hopefully have some good shots of us back-seaters that I took with the disposable camera.

I’d like to apologize to everyone for not writing in a while.

We all know this blog is so I can get my thoughts down and maybe even read over them someday (though I also hope I never have the time to do that). But I like to think that what I write means a little something to everyone else.

What can I say though? I’ve been busy. Looking back at last month’s first entry, I’m really proud that I haven’t had much time to post: By the time I get home at night I have so little energy that I can barely get to the kitchen to feed myself. Hager comes over two nights a week to keep me and Dia company, and now Csoki Tej has added a new dimension to our home life.

I’ll get back to posting in earnest tomorrow.