2008

One of the great things about the start of a new year is the annual celebration of the rapture freaks being wrong, yet again. I wish I could actually figure out a way to make money by claiming that the end is near, and most everyone in the world is going to be thrown into the burning pit of Hell for all eternity.

I guess looking at it from that point of view, the rapture freaks are the smart ones. I just can't seem to figure out how to turn a buck by preying on the weak.

Digby set the tone for the new year;

And that got me imagining what a movie about the current strange American cultural moment would look like. Think about it for a second. The tube's on, they're flashing picture after picture of torture and even murder from Abu Ghraib. We cut from the tv screen to reaction shots of the couple watching the news, jaws hanging slack, absently munching from his 'n hers matching canisters of freshly-wrought Pringles.

I suppose it's true that any "nation" that achieves dominance is doomed to fail at some point. Still, being a selfish bastard as I am, I'm always gratified to see the masses of simian-like, and usually Jesus fellating (need a clever noun here), because I'm not particularly motivated to "be all I can be" as a software engineer and it would suck to actually have a new generation of kids that might threaten my job. Thank Gorak I don't live in an Asian country. I went to college with a bunch of them, and it would suck huge monkey balls to have to compete against them in the work force as well.

Speaking of Asians..

John and I went out for dinner over the weekend to one of those Asian hibachi places where the guy from some backwater Asian country works like a crazed circus monkey to prepare your shrimp and beef right before your eyes, with liberal amounts of burning oil shooting up to singe your eyebrows, causing more hoops and hollers from the chimps sitting all around you.

As a side note.. I've always thought that if people could be that entertained by a 6 inch bluish flame shooting out of the top of a stack of onions designed to look like a volcano, I could just grab the oil squiting thing and shoot it at the "chef".. and no doubt get a great crowd reaction out of that one.

... and we're getting better at classifying people after just a couple grunts.

There's a couple, plus one, sitting across from us, and at first I think that maybe it's some exotic relationship of a guy with 2 women. I shit you not.. my first reaction is usually hoping that somebody, anybody, is actually different than the norm.

I mention it to John and he says.. "nah.. they're from Garland, and the one on the right is the daughter they had when they were really young"... Garland Texas is like.. I don't know.. Pittsburgh without the charm.. very blue collar. Basically, if you're from Garland, you don't want to tell anybody who might know what that is.

Sure enough.. between flame thrower exhibitions, Wang Chung the "Chef", asks them where they're from, and of course "Garland" comes out of Papa Bear. I about shoot my Dancing Geisha martini out my nose, but John has been around Dallas forever so can tell you pretty much everything there is to know about every single person that lives in a metro area of 4 million people just by looking at them.

Human beings are products of their environment, and I suspect very few people are an exception to that rule. Remember that if you plan on having any kids. You might think you can raise the next Stephen Hawking (sans the whole Lou Gehrig's thing) from the trailer park, but really.. no, you can't.. you might as well just name the kid Cleetus and get it over with.

And it turns out that Wang Chung the Chef is actually, American name, Michael, and Asian name, Hai. I don't know why Asians think they have to adopt an American name, but I said to him "Hai, as in 'yes'?" He replied "No.. it's Hai.. not Hai".

I mumbled "oh yes, that's completely different" and went back to my flied lice and Dancing Geisha. It was delicious.