Oh Yeah, I'm Mad!

Hi friends,

I had a little encounter tonight, and I just wanted to tell the story before I run off to sleep and forget the finer parts:

I was out having a few drinks with some friends of mine from my restaurant, and as we were leaving, some random guy ran out into the parking lot and tagged my friend's car (which is an awesome red mustang, might I add). My friend sort of jokingly yelled at him "eh! get away from my car" thinking he was engrossed in some interesting drunken game. As we grew closer to the tagger, we learned that he was colorblind and thought my friend's car was pink ... I didn't believe this, because, well, who trusts people that just came out of a bar?, so I asked him why he was colorblind, and he drew out his 'brother' who is also 'colorblind' and I came to believe that they were both either very well educated in genetics, or both actually colorblind. So I went with colorblind and seeing as how they were seemingly intelligent, entertained myself whilst arguing the Obama-McCain debate with them. They were for Obama, while, I (obviously) was arguing for McCain. I was a little disappointed because the only thing we really got into was the '100 years war' which I addressed earlier on this blog. I gave up on them and we headed toward the car ...

WHERE we discovered that when the asshole 'innocently' tagged the car, he had actually placed a small Obama sticker on my friend's taillight.

FIRST of all, no matter what you are for or against, or what the sticker is supporting, you DO NOT place a sticker on SOMEONE ELSE's car. I feel as though we may have been able to take legal action at that point, but really, who wants to do that when you can just yell obscenities at the other party?

Which is pretty much what I did. I very well (I think) expressed my disgust with the actions of he uneducated morons in the party of the sticker tagger, and then we left ...

But seriously? Who does that??

Don't Panic

Perhaps everything in life should, much like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, come with a 'Don't Panic' sign. It occurs to me that people tend to freak out about things that haven't been decided or don't really matter yet. We can use BPA as a demonstration of that, but I'm pretty much tired of writing about that, and I also feel it's pretty self explanatory. Pretty much every study ever conducted needs to come with a Don't Panic label. In politics and finance ... we really need that label. Just about the only thing I know about the causes of the Great Depression is that the market started slipping ... and we panicked (I just found it very strange that the past tense of panic--with a c--is panicked--with a ck .... weird) and everyone tried to pull all their money out and save it, and then *crash and burn soundbyte*!! Because of this, I'm always nervous when the media gets all upset when the market goes down a certain amount that doesn't really have any context for me. So you can imagine how nervous I became when I come home to eat lunch and turn on the TV to find John McCain talking about how he is going to put his campaign on hold to work with the rest of the government to resolve our financial crisis.

I listened to that whole speech. Nowhere in there did he once say "Don't Panic." You laugh, but I'm completely serious. The whole CNN front page is exploding with Bush and McCain and Obama and CNN Money and oh look! The new plan they are coming up with is called the bailout! It's as if we are in a little rowboat, and there's a little leak in it, and we are slowly (or not so slowly) gaining water. Well, kids, I think we should name our 700 billion dollar plan after a little tin can an a scooping motion. Good Idea. Seriously. Why can't we call it the "Don't Panic--help out the banks" plan. So was this a bad idea to draw so much attention to the financial woes of the US by pressing pause on the presidential campaigns? I don't think so. It would have been better if he had told everyone not to get too excited! but it's still better than letting the bill go as is which was basically a few pages that said Paulson could really do whatever he wanted with the 700 billion. That makes me more nervous ... but I won't panic!

Don't Panic. We can apply this to many situations! Instead of making everyone 'evacuate' when a hurricane is imminent of the shores of Louisianna or Texas, we should call it 'don't panic, but get the hell out of there as fast as possible.' Don't panic. I feel it instills confidence. I tell that to new waitstaff at the restaurant. Usually they just glare at me, but I'm sure it works ....

Don't Panic. What else should we apply this too? How about conspiracy theories? Or that lady who videos a rainbow in the sprinkler water while voicing-over her fear of what the government could possibly be putting in the water that would make these crazy crazy colors ... But she's not even as bad as the people who believe that contrails from plane engines hanging in the sky are really 'chemtrails' created to poison or test chemicals on the good people of the US ... At least crazy rainbow lady had a more efficient way of testing/poisoning the American people. Don't Panic.

I really can't think of a single good reason to panic. My favorite German band--Wir sind Helden--has a song called "Endlich ein Grund fuer Panik." It means "finally a reason to panic." though, they're pretty vague on what that reason is. Something about trees and running and finding a new home and a heart beating. Sure, OK. whatever that means, it sounds like it's a pretty good reason. But I'm not doing that, so I'm not gonna panic. I'm pretty convinced that picking the best of two guys isn't going to end the world one way or the other, so I'm not going to panic about one or the other--even if they are going to take a week or two off in order to make sure the Secretary of Treasury doesn't buy a new boat with his 700 billion ... and even if the government actually is dumping fun things on our heads ...

Yes, this post was about the presidential race ... I think I came full circle, but ... it's 3 am ;-)
Oh yeah, and

Don't Panic.

For anyone still scared of 100 years

I really thought it was self explanatory and that we were over it since it was about 3 months ago, but I keep having McCain opponents throw it at me as some sort of ultimate metaphorical argument cake topper . . . Even when I first heard that he had said something to the effect of being in Iraq for 100 years, I knew what he meant and that I had to have heard it out of context. Maybe that's just because I feel rather secure in that this guy is not going to go blundering around saying stupid things.

(No offense Obama-lovers, but you have to admit that was kinda stupid--bet it sounded purdy, though ;-) . . . unless he has a diabolical plan to give up on the small-town, rural vote all together (for which I wouldn't blame him if he did) and go straight for the . . . people who really don't like small-town, rural voters . . .)

Or maybe it's just because I've been away from Boston for too long (my dad used to call me a Yankee when I came home from undergrad, which angered me on multiple levels!). At any rate, some people still take it out of context, which I don't blame them for, because it is really hard to get everything in context these days with so many biased news organizations. In case you were still wondering how someone could make a comment like that and still be in the presidential race with the opinion of the public where it is today, the title of this post links to an article reprinted in a blog by a (democrat!) person who is tired of people skewing the line. It's a great article, I think. However due to something about thinking republicans having been in power too long (I totally can't vote for a party, dude, sorry), the blogger is still not voting for McCain, but I am, so we're even ;-).

Also, if you don't want to read the article, here's the whole quote, which I read and understood and quite liked, actually. So tell me, have I been in Oklahoma too long?

Questioner: President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for fifty years…
McCain: Maybe a hundred. Make it one hundred. We’ve been in South Korea, we’ve been in Japan for sixty years. We’ve been in South Korea for fifty years or so. That’d be fine with me as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. Then it’s fine with me. I would hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where Al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.

That was a pretty serious blog post . . . for me . . . So I'll leave you with another VW commercial--in this one, Heidi Klum makes the VW blush ;-)



hmm. Maybe I just like listening to the German accents!

What's a Nalgene got to do with John McCain?

My MIT nalgene broke. Is it me or is that ironic?

So now I'm trying to fix it. Now, if I had to guess, I'd say the lid is a polyurethane . . . that's just a little hobby of mine--guessing which polymer things are made of. I wrote a whole paragraph on that before realizing that I was not meaning to discuss that area today . . . I guess I'll have to make another post (wow am I a geek).

Anyway, as I was trying to fix the possibly polyurethane top to my nalgene I recalled that my brothers did not know what a nalgene was when I came back from Boston to visit home in Broken Arrow, OK one year. They were all the rage in Boston. Everyone had one even if they didn't go camping or play sports . . . or drink water. So I was obviously surprised that my brothers didn't know what they were since they did do all of those things.

It was one of those things that made me realize that sometimes the Northeast US and the Southwest US are like different countries, and I must be impressionable because as I stay in one place, I find myself agreeing more and more with popular politics in the area. Back in 2004 during the first Presidential election, I remember quite clearly thinking that George W. Bush was an idiot, and I couldn't fathom that people would actually vote for him, but when I talked to my dad back in Broken Arrow, he had a completely different idea. He said "If anyone in this family votes for Kerry, I'm gonna pull them through a knot hole." Lord only knows what that means. He didn't, of course, because he'd probably be arrested, but it made me realize I had come far off track from where I had been even 4 years before that when I couldn't believe anyone would ever vote for Al Gore!

That brings us to here and now, where I find myself feeling more and more republican than I was a couple of years ago. I still feel that Bush is a terrible public speaker, and maybe should have listened to a few more differing opinions before making huge decisions, but he's obviously not *evil.* This time, I feel as though I am converging on a more middle of the road stance that just happens to be slightly to the right. I probably disagree with most republicans, but I don't care anymore. This is me saying "Thanks world, your input has been greatly appreciated, but I think I've made up my mind now!" Now if only a candidate I like can get enough people behind him/her to snag the nomination.: That seems to be the tough part when you're a more middle of the road voter.

Hey, at least it wasn't a post entirely about polymers and nalgene bottles! That's for next time!