Watch My Left Hand While The Punch Comes From The Right

This was originally a post on FaceBook.  I decided to expand.

Last week, they raised gas prices from $3.40 to $3.90. They've been at 3.90 all week. Then today, just now, they lowered gas prices to $3.70."Look, America, we LOWERED the gas prices right before Memorial Day! We don't gouge the price to take advantage of the holiday! We LOWERED it! Aren't we saints? We're all in this together and God bless America!"

They do this right before holidays.  Especially Memorial Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  A week before the holiday, the gas price raises by 50 cents, then right before the holiday, it lowers by 20 cents, so it looks like they lowered prices by 20 cents (a big knock) when they actually raised it by 30 (a bigger knock).

Another trick - before summer (so any day now) they start a "prediction" that 'this summer, the gas prices will go up to 5 dollars a gallon!' and everyone panics.  But then they only raise the gas prices to $4.70 a gallon, and everyone says 'Well, at least it isn't 5 dollars' and don't complain as much about paying $4.70 for something that just 2 months ago was only $3.40.

Every year, I take a picture of gas prices on December 18 or thereabout, just to prove my points. Here they are, straight from my phone:

December 18, 2011

December 17, 2012

Yes, just 5 months ago, the gas price was $2.63 and yes, in one month you will be paying $4.63 for it. They are tricking us by misdirection. Now don't get me wrong, I understand that it is a business after all and they are in it to make money and bathe in the blood they've squeezed from the turnip that is the American economy. I'm just showing you their quelling tricks. The gasoline industry is, like the wedding industry, the funeral industry, and the health care industry, a stranglehold. You MUST have their product and therefore you WILL pay whatever price they say you will pay. If they raise gas prices to $11 a gallon for the summer, you will pay it. If you want married or buried, you will pay whatever price they say that hall rental or coffin costs. Don't bother saying that you can walk or ride a bike, because it is unrealistic. There are thrifty ways to have a wedding, but that is also unrealistic. And if grandma wants a $6,000 coffin instead of being donated to science, someone in the family will force it because we can't go against dead peoples' wishes. Maybe you can compromise and cremate grandma, but a cremation still costs around $4,000 and then they will charge you $2,000 for the urn. You WILL pay what they want!
Let's lighten the mood.  Here is another picture from my phone.  It is a work that my son made last summer with his crafts.

The Flying Turd

Reprint - "Legalize It"

Way back in the early days of social entertainment, I had a MySpace page that I kept mostly to blog.  I resisted FaceBook for the longest time because you couldn't blog on it.  Recent posts from Ideal Readers on FaceBook have prompted me to repost one of my old blogs.  This was originally written August 8, 2007:

Legalize It  

     First of all, let me start by saying that I do not and never have smoked marijuana, nor do I plan to do so. I have gotten into fights and broken off friendships because of marijuana. I believe that since it is illegal, people should not use it (never mind the illegality of other practices that I do engage in, which I will not list here). I also do not smoke cigarettes. My drug of choice is alcohol, and if we all remember our Capone, that substance was illegal at one time.

     Marijuana should be legalized for this reason: so it can replace cigarettes in the economy. Cigarettes are going out of style. You can't smoke indoors hardly anywhere in America anymore, not even in a bar. A bar! That's just stupid. It's a fucking BAR! You are drinking a potentially addictive substance which will make you sick if overingested, and you are doing so in the hopes that you will be able to have unsafe sex, the dirtier the better, with someone that you just met. In review: we are permitted to attack our livers with an impairing liquid which will make us unsafe to drive, extremely uninhibited and forgetful; we are permitted to attempt to have unprotected sex with strangers who are either slutty or also under the influence; we are not permitted to smoke. Smoking is dangerous! You could get cancer! You could make my eyes water! You could give me cancer!

     To people who complain when someone around them smokes - SHUT THE HELL UP! There is only one viable complaint about smoking. It stinks. It permeates every fabric and Febreeze doesn't cut it. Smoking is dangerous? Tell me that the next time you go 85 MPH on the freeway. You could get cancer? You'll get cancer anyway. Everything causes cancer. The only real question is whether or not you die of some other cause before cancer gets you.

     Anyway - alcohol is still ok - It is a substance which: relaxes the body; impairs behavior; relaxes inhibitions; makes people say silly things; can be concentrated for a stronger effect.  Does any of this sound familiar? Cigarettes are becoming outmoded, so Big Tobacco is going to take a huge whack in sales and the economy will drop. What to do?

    

     Legalize marijuana. Sell it like cigarettes, treat it like alcohol. Make the same laws which apply to alcohol apply to marijuana. No blunts for folks under 21. No operating a motor vehicle under the influence of a fattie. Also - tax the hell out of it! Trust me, people will buy it.

     

     Don't give me any shit about the deleterious effects of marijuana, either. I don't buy it. Don't quote me the results of some study. They are propagandist bullshit designed to keep us in line, and even if it concerns a substance that I never used and never will - fuck the system! Even the devil can quote the bible. Remember - the best way to get someone to do something is to tell them that they can not or should not.

    

Book Review - Seven Deadly Sins

It's been quite some time since I've blogged.  Like, since MySpace ago.  But it was suggested to me by someone who cares that I should start blogging again.  I will start again by posting book reviews, and occasionally go back to my comedic pedantic ranting and other things.  Perhaps I should repost some of the MySpace stuff...

Anyway.  Ahem:

Seven Deadly Sins: Settling the Argument Between Born Bad and Damaged Good

Author: Corey Taylor

Published in 2012

Philosophy / Memoir

Occasionally, a celebrity will release a book that is not a memoir or a list of exploits in chronological order.  The comedian Tim Allen did it - writing a book about advanced physics, quantum mechanics, and his understanding of things like String Theory and touching on metaphysical aspects of... everything - in his book I'm Not Really Here.  Tim Allen, in case you do not know, was a comedian known for jokes about men being dumb and rude and tool-oriented.  He was the star of the TV show Home Improvement and more recently the voice of Buzz Lightyear in the Toy Story movies.   Among his catchphrases are "[it] needs more power!" and "Men are pigs," followed by grunting.  His book is NOTHING like his comedy.  

For those who do not know, Corey Taylor is the lead singer of the aggressive metal band Slipknot, the not-so-aggressive metal band Stone Sour, and several collaborations with many contemporary metal and non-metal bands and artists.  He is also known as "The Great Big Mouth" and in magazines, "The Artist Known As 'Corey Fucking Taylor'". His style is, in spite of the obvious anger, very emotional.  This book is not about any of that.  

Mr. Taylor's yearbook photo

Once, when I was first getting into anti-religion, I read a pamphlet concerning whether the Ten Commandments were still relevant.  This book is similar, positing that the Seven Deadly Sins are not only not deadly, but not even sins.  There are personal stories and anecdotes here, but they are always on subject.  This is not a celebrity memoir of "things I have done and you are all jealous of, nenner nenner boo boo" like most memoirs are.  This is not a Behind The Music-esque look back at the autobiographist's life in shame and regret.  

But as befitting of a stereotypical rock star, the language is vulgar and even the most insightful passages are fraught with juvenile metaphors.  Also, quite annoyingly, Taylor wants to assure you that he is the only person who has ever thought of any of this and only he is qualified to say and think this way.  Sometimes it reminds me of a teenager who wants so hard to be a bad-ass or a bitch that he or she must constantly remind you that they are a bad-ass or a bitch.  Everybody knows people like this.  My aunt Jean likes to tout that she is a crazy person and she does indeed have a documented diagnosed mental condition.  It is not, however a psychosis and therefore, she is not a "crazy person."  To be fair, Jean does say it as a joke - but a crazy person talks to park benches and manages to wear their shoes inside-out.  Jean does not do this.  Thus, her reminders of her CRAZYNESS seem overly silly and self-indulgent.

This box uses the F word approximately 6 less times than any similar length passage from the book

Taylor also has the bad habit of using polysyllabic words in an effort to appear more intelligent.  This isn't to say that what he is saying is not intelligent - it just seems like he is trying to hard to prove that he knows adjectives like, well, polysyllabic in addition to nouns like fuck and adverbs like fucking.  There are also very many instances of non-sequitur (always followed by interjection that you just read a non-sequitur), many instances of on-purpose in-your-face irrelevance, and many instances reminding you that Taylor knows that his probable audience are ignorant misfit teenagers who think they are the only ones who have ever thought against popular conventions.

In spite of all of that, this book is a very insightful posit about the relevance of sin in human life and interaction.  Most of the Seven Deadly Sins are quite common in human behavior and by their very inherent nature, not sinful.  While some of them can certainly lead to sinful and hurtful behavior, they are not themselves sinful or hurtful.  In each chapter, a sin is deconstructed and explained as normal, common, and most importantly non-victimizing.  

I highly recommend this book.  To name names, I recommend to Ruth (if you could get past the profanity), Jean (if you can get past the fact that Taylor's typical audience is ignorant) and Tracy (if I thought you could actually read or independently think).  

To paraphrase, Taylor is not selling salvation, but preaching moderation and suggesting, seriously, a more proper grouping of Seven Deadly Sins.

Potent Quotes:

"We are defined by our dignity to rise above debasement.  We are certainly better people for doing so.  They say, 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'  That is exactly my point.  Not only are we all guilty of just being ourselves, we were never guilty in the first place. The only problem comes when we become caricatures of these Deadly whims."

"These people are not sinners.  They are just shitty people."