If today is anything like what the summer will be like, I'm going to be very bored.
I'm working on classwork from home today, but since my internet connection is down I'm actually at the library. Oh, and because I'm a daft bastard I forgot my headphones. Basically, the only thing I can do is copy this audiobook to listen later and try not to kill the bastard in the nearest chair who won't stop texting.
I'm apparently worthless without internet or headphones. When the hell did that happen? What did people do before television, internet, and radio? A quick glance at history books reveals the answer: They went to war. I suppose it's not so strange an idea ... after all, it's taking me some effort to not garrote this chav in the opposite chair. I suppose if I get seriously bored, I can just give in to my anger ... only my hatred can destroy him ... whoops, sorry, started quoting Emperor Palpatine again.
Today's my day off work because I have class for seventeen thousand hours on Tuesdays, so that's what prevents me going to the mall. Also, my loathing of everything at the mall and everyone who shops there, that does play a part. I'm at the library because it's free to read, free to browse the intertubes, and free to just sit there and not do anything. Really, ask anyone using any chair there. All these things being free doesn't stop it being boring though, so I find myself looking out the window behind me, wishing today was tax day and the teabaggers were out. I'll have to come back tomorrow to watch the teabaggers.
Incidentally, I am simultaneously amused and confused by every news report I see on the teabagging protests. It boggles the mind that people can't use urbandictionary.com to find out the alternate definition of anything. For example, shoelace. The reason I chose shoelace is because I looked at my feet. A quick search on urbandictionary.com and I learn that shoelace is also a euphemism for the pattern of ... well, just search it yourselves. But don't say I didn't warn you ... I mean it is urbandictionary.com.
Half the stuff on there I'm sure somebody made up without there being precedent. After searching "Shoelace" it gave me nearby entries alphabetically, and one was "shoekakke". Upon reading the definition, along with that of "shoejob" (the act of a girl stimulating a man to orgasm with her cute shoes), I am reasonably confident that before someone typed all that shit in, nobody had done it before. Thanks to the laws of quantum fetish mechanics (the act of thinking up a strange new fetish causes it to be real) I am sure someone has done it NOW, if for no other reason than to try it out or to see if anyone they know is actually dumb enough to do this.
At least that's what I tell myself as I pour myself a scotch.
06 April 2009
Hockey - a diatribe
I have been a hockey fan for as long as I can remember knowing about hockey. Needless to say, I have several (thousand) gripes with the sport, despite maintaining it is the best sport in the history of sport.
First off, icing. What the hell is it? I have watched many hockey matches live, a few on television, and listened to none on the radio but nobody has ever explained this to me. Like any good researcher, I looked on Wikipedia first. According to the article on the subject, icing is “when a player shoots the puck across two red lines, the opposing team's goal line being the last, and the puck remains untouched”. Now I certainly can see why this dangerous act is worthy of penalty. Oh wait, no I don't. Yes, certainly it's boring, and not something players should do as a habit, but is it worthy of completely stopping play and having a referee arm signal? Besides, I thought that was “dumping the puck”; icing just gives the idea that we're penalising people for stopping suddenly in front of each other and causing ice to spray all over each other, and this is a sport where if they don't do that, there will be a lot more injuries than just from fights.
On the subject of fights, the NHL is utter crap. My first NHL game was a St Louis Blues matchup against the New York Islanders. This was back in 1994, when the Blues had Brett Hull, and were sort of somewhat good as opposed to just nearby. Anyway, there was real excitement in the air. There were hard body checks, there were fights, there was shouting and swearing – all a beautiful experience for a nine-year-old boy who is still afraid to say “damn.” Of late though, I have been hard-pressed to see much (if any) fighting on an NHL match. If I want to watch a beautiful game, I would watch football (real football, not American football. I know it can get confusing but I refuse to call it “soccer”). I want to see some action in my hockey, not skating back and forth. Throw a punch or change the name of your sport.
Of course, I have no idea when players stopped fighting in NHL hockey, because for several years now hockey has been almost impossible to find on television. I know in 2006 there was a player lockout which probably didn't help convince any networks to air hockey, and that decision carried over a couple years, but the thing with lockouts and strikes is they don't happen every year, or even every other year. If they did, they'd just declare it a holiday week and write it into the calendar. NBC/Universal must have grown some yarbles of late by starting up NHL Sunday, airing daytime games even during NFL season. Unfortunately I can't commend them too much because NHL Sunday airs just this side of not at all. The last time I saw it was in February, and there are still games to play, therefore games to air! NBC, as well as every other network with a sport division: air some hockey already. We fans south of the snowline are starved for a real sport, and this is the only one that happens in this country between January and April.
First off, icing. What the hell is it? I have watched many hockey matches live, a few on television, and listened to none on the radio but nobody has ever explained this to me. Like any good researcher, I looked on Wikipedia first. According to the article on the subject, icing is “when a player shoots the puck across two red lines, the opposing team's goal line being the last, and the puck remains untouched”. Now I certainly can see why this dangerous act is worthy of penalty. Oh wait, no I don't. Yes, certainly it's boring, and not something players should do as a habit, but is it worthy of completely stopping play and having a referee arm signal? Besides, I thought that was “dumping the puck”; icing just gives the idea that we're penalising people for stopping suddenly in front of each other and causing ice to spray all over each other, and this is a sport where if they don't do that, there will be a lot more injuries than just from fights.
On the subject of fights, the NHL is utter crap. My first NHL game was a St Louis Blues matchup against the New York Islanders. This was back in 1994, when the Blues had Brett Hull, and were sort of somewhat good as opposed to just nearby. Anyway, there was real excitement in the air. There were hard body checks, there were fights, there was shouting and swearing – all a beautiful experience for a nine-year-old boy who is still afraid to say “damn.” Of late though, I have been hard-pressed to see much (if any) fighting on an NHL match. If I want to watch a beautiful game, I would watch football (real football, not American football. I know it can get confusing but I refuse to call it “soccer”). I want to see some action in my hockey, not skating back and forth. Throw a punch or change the name of your sport.
Of course, I have no idea when players stopped fighting in NHL hockey, because for several years now hockey has been almost impossible to find on television. I know in 2006 there was a player lockout which probably didn't help convince any networks to air hockey, and that decision carried over a couple years, but the thing with lockouts and strikes is they don't happen every year, or even every other year. If they did, they'd just declare it a holiday week and write it into the calendar. NBC/Universal must have grown some yarbles of late by starting up NHL Sunday, airing daytime games even during NFL season. Unfortunately I can't commend them too much because NHL Sunday airs just this side of not at all. The last time I saw it was in February, and there are still games to play, therefore games to air! NBC, as well as every other network with a sport division: air some hockey already. We fans south of the snowline are starved for a real sport, and this is the only one that happens in this country between January and April.
04 April 2009
We're here to defend wealth
I'm not sure when I decided I hated money, but I think it was around age ten. Yes, ten. I took a good hard look at the function of money in society and decided it was a middleman and therefore could be removed completely. I came up with my own simple way of acquisition of goods and job creation - everyone can go in and take what they need. Nobody steals anything because the idea is meaningless. Everybody works unless it's medically necessary to not work (that would include old age).
I'm well aware of how complicated this would be to do worldwide (because it would be necessary to implement it worldwide), however in our current system, people can go into debt and even bankruptcy before age 25. There is an entire industry based on high-interest short-term loans to people who are already living paycheque to paycheque. There is an entire second industry based on the first one that takes any and all information surrendered at the high-interest loan place and bombards the phone numbers with unsolicited text messages and phone calls at odd hours, and the email addresses with hundreds (at least) of spam messages (how spam messages make any fucking money for anyone I've yet to understand).
Money is theoretically how we determine if someone has worked hard enough to receive certain goods and services. When we throw CEOs, no-talent musicians, professional athletes, and all of Wall Street and the City into the mix, doesn't that completely bastardise that definition? I defy anyone to tell me how a stockbroker works harder than a minimum wage retail worker. I defy anyone to tell me how a professional athlete works harder than a factory worker who works twelve hours per day in dangerous and unhealthy surroundings, and then his bosses try to cut his pay to raise theirs. How the hell do Nickelback deserve all that money they make?
I won't even get started ... that's a fucking lie, I'm already started on the health insurance industry. When people get sick, the options include pay cash for treatment (usually an entirely too-large amount) or already have insurance before you even got sick. Isn't "insurance" a euphemism for "protection racket"? Anyway, the insurance doesn't even work that well because if you already have insurance, odds are it doesn't cover everything. It doesn't necessarily even cover what you need. And even if it does cover what you need, some shitbag at the company can just decide you don't really need this particular procedure. An insurance company isn't there to help its customers, it's there to take their fucking money.
Even if the insurance company DOES pay for some of your treatment, they probably won't pay for the whole thing (which makes PERFECT SENSE!). They'll pay for maybe half to three quarters of the bill, leaving you with a huge amount of money to pay them. Gods help you if you're really sick and need multiple procedures, and even more so if you're young and don't have a lot of money anyway.
Recently I've heard and seen a lot about a move towards universal health coverage. Some of this I've heard from representatives of doctors and insurance companies. The representatives of insurance companies I don't fucking trust - I'm completely certain they only want a law to make god damn sure every human in America has to buy a policy from their existing company, and they can still turn people away for procedures their doctors (you know, the people who are fucking qualified to decide if something is medically necessary) have decided is medically necessary. Frankly, I wouldn't be satisfied if that happened. I guarantee anyone with an existing medical bill will be totally screwed. The only thing I'll be actually satisfied with is full health coverage including psychological, surgical, and preventative treatment.
It worked for every other post-industrial nation in the world; I think we could pull it off.
----
Now listening: Billy Bragg - No Power Without Accountability
I'm well aware of how complicated this would be to do worldwide (because it would be necessary to implement it worldwide), however in our current system, people can go into debt and even bankruptcy before age 25. There is an entire industry based on high-interest short-term loans to people who are already living paycheque to paycheque. There is an entire second industry based on the first one that takes any and all information surrendered at the high-interest loan place and bombards the phone numbers with unsolicited text messages and phone calls at odd hours, and the email addresses with hundreds (at least) of spam messages (how spam messages make any fucking money for anyone I've yet to understand).
Money is theoretically how we determine if someone has worked hard enough to receive certain goods and services. When we throw CEOs, no-talent musicians, professional athletes, and all of Wall Street and the City into the mix, doesn't that completely bastardise that definition? I defy anyone to tell me how a stockbroker works harder than a minimum wage retail worker. I defy anyone to tell me how a professional athlete works harder than a factory worker who works twelve hours per day in dangerous and unhealthy surroundings, and then his bosses try to cut his pay to raise theirs. How the hell do Nickelback deserve all that money they make?
I won't even get started ... that's a fucking lie, I'm already started on the health insurance industry. When people get sick, the options include pay cash for treatment (usually an entirely too-large amount) or already have insurance before you even got sick. Isn't "insurance" a euphemism for "protection racket"? Anyway, the insurance doesn't even work that well because if you already have insurance, odds are it doesn't cover everything. It doesn't necessarily even cover what you need. And even if it does cover what you need, some shitbag at the company can just decide you don't really need this particular procedure. An insurance company isn't there to help its customers, it's there to take their fucking money.
Even if the insurance company DOES pay for some of your treatment, they probably won't pay for the whole thing (which makes PERFECT SENSE!). They'll pay for maybe half to three quarters of the bill, leaving you with a huge amount of money to pay them. Gods help you if you're really sick and need multiple procedures, and even more so if you're young and don't have a lot of money anyway.
Recently I've heard and seen a lot about a move towards universal health coverage. Some of this I've heard from representatives of doctors and insurance companies. The representatives of insurance companies I don't fucking trust - I'm completely certain they only want a law to make god damn sure every human in America has to buy a policy from their existing company, and they can still turn people away for procedures their doctors (you know, the people who are fucking qualified to decide if something is medically necessary) have decided is medically necessary. Frankly, I wouldn't be satisfied if that happened. I guarantee anyone with an existing medical bill will be totally screwed. The only thing I'll be actually satisfied with is full health coverage including psychological, surgical, and preventative treatment.
It worked for every other post-industrial nation in the world; I think we could pull it off.
----
Now listening: Billy Bragg - No Power Without Accountability
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