Come on Really

Come on

Really

OK this has my panties in a wad.

The shooting in Newtown was an absolute abomination.

Horrible beyond horrible.

I cannot even fathom the pain that this person wrought.

But I would like to stress that it is “this Person”

I am no gun enthusiast.

I own 1 shotgun, it was my dad’s.

I have fired twice 20 years ago. It currently sits in my father-in-laws gun vault.

The gun did not make this person do anything at all. The bullets did not whisper their madness into his innocent ears.

The dude was wrong in the head and found an instrument of destruction and used it.

If he had stolen a car and drove it into the school room would there be a cry for a ban on cars?

What if he had used a duck?

What if he had taken a bag full of ducks and started beating the poor children to death with fluffy mallards?

This outcry for more gun control is like saying my car’s engine light is on can you check the muffler?

All gun control does, is keep guns out of a law abiding citizens hand.

I can tell you right here and right now the very bestest place to start in trying to hinder* tragedies such as this.

At. Home.

It all starts at the home.

We as a society have just gotten worse and worse on how we treat each other and it is snowballing out of control. I don’t know HOW to fix it but that’s where it has to start.

Only by bringing the next generation up right and intelligently and respectfully can we ever hope of becoming better than we are.

*(I say hinder because horrible stuff will always happen, its just the way the world works).

scary

You know whats scary?

I mean really scary!

This

A newfound asteroid gave Earth a close shave early today, zipping between our planet and the moon just two days after astronomers first spotted it.

View article...

Yeah basically 2 days ago an asteroid appears out of nowhere and, in astronomical terms, just grazed our face.

You know that scene in The Matrix where Neo Reeves is on the rooftop leaning way back as he dodges those bullets?

Kinda like that but there is no way we can get the planet to move like that (or wear that awesome trench coat)

Its not a matter of IF it is a matter of WHEN…

for example:

Scientists have discovered about 9,000 near-Earth asteroids to date, but perhaps a million or more such space rocks are thought to exist.

And some of them are potentially dangerous. Observations by NASA's WISE space telescope suggest that about 4,700 asteroids at least 330 feet (100 m) wide come uncomfortably close to our planet at some point in their orbits.

Basically what this means is there is an entire army of tanks out there surrounding our little foxhole and they are all rumbling this direction. We know something is out there and we can hear them but all we have been able to do is spot 1 or 2 of them in the distance.

That’s scary and as humans we can’t do a single damn thing about it so why worry about it?

We should be using our global resources to make giant orbiting asteroid killing laser gun things.

Instead we make people like Britney and Lady Ga-Ga rich.

Yeah we deserve a good flattening.

Childhood

Recently on the facebook a friend posted a maudlin post about how he is sad yet proud of his growing little boy.

It really hit home with me.

Childhood is like a really good book.

You first start not knowing what the story will be like just a vague idea as to the way it plays out. Sometimes it can be hard to really get it moving but you move along.

Soon enough the story pulls you in and captivates you. You are enthralled with all the elements. You enjoy your time getting to know these characters and living within their lives.

Time flies by as you hungrily devour each word.

The words zip by, then the chapters.

Then you are looking at the book and seeing how many pages are left.

A kind of sadness befalls you because you don’t want to see the story end, you are not ready to leave yet but there is the end right there looming closer and closer.

Finally the last chapter ends and you close the book.

All you have left is a memory of the story as your child then starts writing their next volume.

The end of childhood is like the passing of a loved one

Sure you are proud of your child and the accomplishments they have done but there will never be any more firsts for you.

No more first steps, first scares, first wonders

Like any death in your life all you can do is accept it and move forward.

At least with adulthood you still have a person whom you can love and loves you right back.

However, there will always be a hole in your life, a part of you will always miss the child that was.

SMH

I can name all the actors who have ever protrayed the Doctor in Doctor Who.
 I can name all the captains and the ships they commanded from Star Trek. 
I can tell you the difference between a quaffle and a bludger and name ten planets from Star Wars. 

Sitting at a stop sign in my car I could not for the life of me remember how to turn on the damn dome light.
.

fast braining

Your brain is fantastic in how fast it and calculate and compute.

No computer on the planet can operate as well and good as that slab of meat sitting between your ears!

For instance: let’s just say you are putting you cellphone into your breast pocket and for some reason or another you miss.

Your brain immediately screams “GRAB IT”

It then sends the necessary instructions to the arms

“45 degrees and grab… NOW!”

“33 degrees to port and grab on my mark…NOW!”

However, sometimes your brain is moving so fast that the impulse coming back from the fingers saying

“WE HAVE CONTACT”

Well that crucial information just gets lost in the melee.

All of this in just a matter of nanoseconds

So the end effect is you end up standing there having what looks to be a cross between a mild seizure and demonic possession. You stand there beating at your own person like you are putting out a small fire as you slap ineffectually at your bouncing phone

This all ends as you finally watch in horror as your own arm, the arm you have known all your life and who you thought was your friend, ends the fight by flinging your phone across the room to smash delicately into the far wall.

Or as I like to all it

Monday

Black Thursday

http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2012/11/13/15136983-target-employees-protest-over-thanksgiving-shifts?lite

This year, Walmart, Toys R Us, Kmart, and Sears are all opening their doors at 8 pm Thursday. Together with Target, that's two to four hours before they kicked things off last year

Reached for comment, Target spokesperson Molly Snyder told NBC News: "Targets opening time was carefully evaluated with our guests, team and the business in mind. Across the country, team member preferences were considered in creating our store staffing schedules. Thanksgiving weekend is one of the busiest of the year, and we appreciate our Target teams flexibility on this weekend and throughout the holiday season

Synder told NBC News that Target employees always receive time-and-a-half pay for working national holidays. Workers clocking hours during Thanksgiving and Black Friday also receive additional pay bonuses, she said. Only one-third of Target's workforce is scheduled to work on Thanksgiving.

We have heard from many stores that they had more team members volunteer to work than they had available shifts," Snyder said.

Really?

Is this really necessary?

Thanksgiving used to be a time of holiday

A time of coming together as a family and enjoying one another company.

Times change though and that sweet and nostalgic memory is gone.

A few decades back the day after became BLACK FRIDAY and now it is bleeding over into Thanksgiving itself.

For those outside of the retail community they are told that this term, BLACK FRIDAY, means that today is the day that the retail outlet gets out of the red and into the black.

As someone who has worked more than his fair share of BLACK FRIDAY’s from inside of the trenches, that is bullshit.

It is just some marketing ploy to steer any negative connotations away from the day.

This is a dark and dismal day where everyone who wants to save 2 bucks converges on a local retail outlet like locusts and act like the rude, selfish herd mentality humans that makes up all the worst traits of society.

It’s a bad, bad day.

After leaving retail I wanted to see what this day was like from “the other side”

After fighting the crowds and traffic for hours and hours I was left with a final decision.

It’s a bad, bad day.

Now, in pursuit of the almighty dollar, stores are opening earlier and earlier

In the article Target exclaims that they have had more people request to work that day then they have shifts for.

Gee I wonder why.

Could it possibly be that each person is in such dire need of the money that they are willing to forgo quality time with their families just to have the chance at making a few extra bucks?

That can’t be it, can it?

It’s gotta be a strong desire to see the multi-billion dollar company grow and thrive.

Maybe it’s a sense of duty and wanting to help out their fellow man in purchasing the last ipod on the sales floor.

Nah I think it’s the cash thing.

I swear the only thing that is going to save the human race from itself is an apocalypse.

gilded lead

Pretty drained still today

You see, in my adoptive hometown there was a young girl of 15 who recently passed from leukemia

She was a strong spirited young woman whose sickness brought a small town closer together. As a parent, and as a person, the unimaginative rolling waves of grief are just smothering when you are lucky enough to just be off to the side, so it has to be just unbearable under the full rolling waves. It is just so horrible and wrong for any parent to have to bury their child and I have a fervent wish and prayer I never have to experience. It did make me think though.

How many people were here for the support of this ailing girl’s family and celebration of her life and how many were just the cattle climbing on the train with everyone else?

Was she just the flavor of the month to some or did she really spark a fire within full of community spirit and empathy to your fellow man?

Does it really matter what the long term effect may have been when, for that brief moment in the town’s history, everyone was bonded together under 1 small sick child?

Maybe it is just the pessimistic skeptic (skeptimisstic?) in me that drags these thoughts across my mind.

At her service on Saturday she played to a packed house. There were over/around 300 people there all there to wish her well on her next journey. This was a nice thing to see, this young person’s small little 15 years on the planet had really touched so many people’s hearts. I counted up everyone I would expect at my funeral if I died immediately and was struggling to hit 50.

I guess regardless of why it is just nice that it was.

Just take the good at face value.

If you scrape too deep you will find that it is just gilded lead.