Today we'll talk about baby Imhotep.

Okay, I can hear you all groaning out there, saying, "There goes Nicholas again. He's going to start reminiscing about how he fathered one of the Ancient Egyptian Pharaonic Dynasties. How he enslaved the Jews for YHVH alone knows how many years and brought plenty to the people of Egypt. How many times have we heard that story?"

Hmm. Be that as it may, you're wrong. That's not what I was going to talk about. And just for being that way, now I won't tell you the secret of how to build pyramids with only the most primitive technology available.

Anyway, let's go back to baby Imhotep, who, despite his fascinating name, is a contemporary young lad currently making his way through New York City's school system. Or he was, at any rate. It seems baby Imhotep is now too scared to go back to school. "Scared to death" is how his father put it. The father of baby Imhotep, contrary to what one would expect, goes by the more mundane name of Pierre, instead of Osiris or Akhenaton.

It seems that not too long ago, baby Imhotep's teacher decided to play a prank on one of his fellow educators. He enlisted baby Imhotep's aid in the execution of this prank. The plan involved hanging baby Imhotep in a closet from one of his belt loops. The 5-year old Imhotep agreed to this plan, stating that it would be "high esoteric fun" according to one classified report I was made privy to. According to another report, this one quoting different sources, baby Imhotep was found by another teacher, hanging 5 feet off the ground and utterly terrified. The principal was sent for, and subsequently New York's Finest, who arrested baby Imhotep's teacher.

Baby Imhotep's father, Pierre, is now suing the school system to the tune of 5 million dollars for the anguish inflicted upon the baby pharaoh by his teacher.

While I have no doubt at all that the only possible descriptor for the teacher who thought up the prank is "clueless moron", 5 million dollars seems a bit steep to me. Moreso when it won't be the clueless teacher paying up, but the school system, hence the city, hence the taxpayers.

I'm all for punishing the teacher, since stupidity ought to be a crime, and a capital one at that, but to pretend to make 5 million bucks out of something like this is about as insensitive as calling your own kid Imhotep. Don't you agree, Pierre? I mean, if someone needs to sue someone else for anguish caused, I'd say it should be baby Imhotep vs Pierre Lubin, right?

It is getting awfully tiresome to see these frivolous lawsuits being sent through the courts, bogging down the system and causing more harm than good. I can't even begin to understand why these cases are not only admitted, but often end up granting the money being asked for by the plaintiff. There are entire websites dedicated to these types of lawsuits, such as the big, fat, circus freak type people trying to get money out of the fast food chains, though, thank Ra, a recent law is disallowing them en masse. And what about the absolutely stupid woman who didn't know they sell hot coffee and sued because she burned herself with it? Her name has been immortalized as a descriptor for frivolous lawsuits in general.

If we continue to give prizes out for stupidity, while at the same time penalizing anyone who uses good sense, we'll just be applying Reverse Darwinism to our society. Survival of the Least Fit is what I'd call that theory.

This whole situation needs to be looked at soon, and dealt with. It's more of a risk than any terrorist group to the survival and wellbeing of our nation. I'm sure we can defeat Al-Qaeda if we're willing to use our full might, but defeating stupidity will take a concerted effort by everyone, including the stupid, who should probably quit breeding as a service to the rest of us.

Back when I started out, I was about the only one I was ever aware of who consciously decided Evil was the way to go. Give it some thought... All these dastardly fiends we see in the movies had almost no counterparts in real life. Take Hitler. He didn't consider himself to be evil. He was working towards a vision he had for the German nation. He never decided to be evil and start out by killing 6 million Jews. Evil is a label history has pinned on him and his cohorts. Had Nazi Germany won the war, everyone would still be praising Hitler's vision and dedication to Aryan ideals. Sharon and Arafat are two more good examples. Sooner or later one side will prevail, and the other side's leader will be considered an incarnation of evil from then onwards, yet both are certain they are doing what is necessary for the good of their people.

Well, at a certain point in my evolution as a person, I took stock of myself, then took stock of the Universe and all it contained, and finally spent a very long time pondering and weighing the duality of Good and Evil. Or as some prefer to call them, Order and Chaos. I decided that instead of what the majority of mankind has always done, which is to do evil haphazardly while trying to do good, I'd be a conscientious objector. I would do Evil and revel in it.

I'll always be proud of having been, if not the first to do this for real, certainly one of the pioneers.

Nowadays, though, there's even a frigging manual for those similarly inclined.

You. Yes, you. I've been busy these past months on a personal project, so I haven't had time to pay attention to you. I do know what you've been doing from the start, though. I was planning something horribly complicated, humiliating, hilarious and probably fatal. Unfortunately, my personal project has reached a stage where it's going to require far more of my attention than I had anticipated.

This offers you a rare opportunity. You can desist and we'll leave it at that. I'm going to be too busy to work out the plan I had for you, and I'd hate to have to fall back on some simple, swat-the-fly punishment scheme. That's so amateur.

If you continue to try and pester me, though, I'll have to do that, as I can't have any distractions right now.

Your choice.

Today was the funeral for the second firefighter buddy to have died in less than a month. This one was a hell of a lot more poignant than Billy's, though. Sean was only 18 years old, and his gf has a baby on the way.

The honor paid to Sean was tremendous. More than 800 people attended the service today. All that for an 18 year old that lived in a town no one's ever heard of. The honor accorded us during the service as his fellow firefighters left me speechless, too. In fact, I'm still speechless and will quit writing about this now. Sorry.

Here's a picture I took of how we blocked off the frigging street with two Ladder Trucks and slung a flag between them. That's a hero's sendoff. Click on the picture for a higher resolution version.



These guys have become family to me so quickly.

I've been marginally following the whole thing about the 911 commission. I have yet to understand why people are so insistent on wasting time on this that would be put to better use by doing something about it. It's as if people are not only clueless, but also highly resentful of any attempt to educate them.

Going on and on and on and on about how the government failed us by not doing this or that. Trying to pin the blame on Clinton or Bush. Did Condowhateverhernameis Rice know about Al Qaeda before or not.

People. Who the fuck cares??? Instead of trying to resolve the problem, everyone, Republicans and Democrats, Straights and Gays, Lefties and Righties, and all other pointless divisions are hellbent on pinning the blame for it on somebody. I wonder if they expect all our dead tro come back to life once they identify the culprit and do what? Spit on him/her? Ostracize him/her? Euthanize him/her?

I'm all for a serious analysis of how it all came about, just so we understand the errors we made and make sure they're not repeated, but 911 isn't something you can pin on Clinton, or Bush. The only culprits are a bunch of fanatical camel humpers hiding out in the desert of some hellish country right now. Or maybe hiding out in NJ, for all we know, since Intelligence Gathering is probably suffering as a result of us having a lot of the CIA types sequestered for the Commission to go all Inquisition on them.

Let's suppose Bush had said, a few months into office, "Hey! There's this bunch of Mad Arabs planning on taking us down! Congress, can you approve my leading the country into a war against them?" Bush would have been laughed out of the room. Likewise Clinton in his day, although at least he could have used the U.S.S. Cole as an excuse to try and take the battle to them. I say try because with all the bleeding hearts and morons out there, he'd have had one hell of a time getting support for a retaliatory strike without due process in the pre-9/11 days. This was back in the day when we tried to deal with terrorism via the courts. Hell, even today you have assholes like Kerry saying that we shouldn't be attacking anyone. I have yet to hear the man give a reasonable plan on how to handle the threat without fighting back.

Times have changed. We lived in a much nicer, safer, if altogether naive version of the Universe, up till 9/10/01. Our world ended that day. Before night fell the following day, that old world had been utterly destroyed, caught up in the ruin of two tall buildings in the greatest city in the world. No one's acts before that day should be judged against the rules of the new world that shook itself up out of the ashes of those two buildings. It's that simple. And no one's acts after that day can be expected to conform to the niceties in place prior to it.

We are at war, and it must be to the death. The mindset of our adversary is completely alien to our own, as I've said in an earlier post. I think ours is better, but I'm biased. Ultimately, Darwin will triumph and future generations will consider this conflict's victor's mindset to have been good and proper the whole time.

It still pains me to see how people with the opportunity to do great things are playing around foolishly when there's work to be done.

I finally saw a movie I'd been wanting to see for a while. The movie's title is Frida. A pity there aren't more movies made like this one. Hayek is, as most always, a pleasure to watch, both as an actress and as a woman. The resemblance to the real Frida Kahlo is remarkable, too. Half of it is makeup, of course, but Salma also shares some similarities that made it easier for the makeup artists to do their job. Whoever cast her in the role was inspired and brilliant.

Many, many long years ago, someone sent me a postcard with one of Diego Rivera's murals. It was the one titled "Sueno de una tarde dominical en la Alameda Central", which you can appreciate here. That mural, even postcard sized, shook me to the core. I'd never seen anything like it. I'd never heard of Diego before, either. I took it upon myself to find out about him, and look at as much of his work as I could find. While researching him I found, of course, Frida.

I quickly saw that Frida's art was as magnificent as Diego's. They complemented each other, those two did.

In one of my recent trips to Mexico, after the mandatory drinking and carousing with my colleagues for a few days, one of them said, "Hey, do you want to go sightseeing? Do you want to go see anything in particular?". I said, "Take me to Diego Rivera's house". Once past their amazement at my not only knowing the great Mexican muralist's name, but also being familiar with his life and work, and Frida's, I was taken to the artist's studio. The day I spent there, plus another day at Teotihuacan, were the high points of that trip.

It's a pity that people normally fail to appreciate the wonders around them, not only when they travel, but also near their homes. It saddens me that probably not 1% of the Mexican capital's population has ever been to Diego's studio. And it amazes me that so many people travel so far and once they get to a place like Mexico City, they'll spend their time simply partying around. I can party around any time right here at home. And while I will always set aside some time for drinking and wenching when I travel, I most certainly don't make that the bulk of my activities.

Anyway, for those who may share my outlook on life as evidenced here, see the movie. It presents the major events in Frida's life, and accordingly Diego, played by Alfred Molina, figures prominently in the movie. And don't leave it at that. Peruse the links I provided above. Go to your local museums, both Diego and Frida are often represented in them. And should you get the opportunity, don't miss going to the many sites and museums in Mexico dedicated to these two artists. If I turn one person on to something like this, I'll consider it time well spent in writing this post.

As a bonus for me, I'll now set my computer's wallpaper to one of Diego's works.

I'm swiftly running out of friends. They keep dying off on me. You'd think I'd be used to that.

I guess it was just too obvious a response. That, or simply great minds think alike.

Happy Birthday, kid. Wish I could be there for you more...

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it...

Got a new job, this time at a very large booze maker. I wonder if they have a freebie cubicle there? Must check.

Downside of all that is that the new job is on top of my current one, and the salary stays the same. Maybe I should have wished for a job replacing my current one? I think when I cast the spell all I said was, "I want a new job". Upside is that I was getting bored, so any change is a good one, and also that this is a temporary thing. I'll only be doing it for anywhere between 3 and 6 months. Of course, I've seen many 2 month assignments drag on for 2 years and more in this company, so who knows...

I watched Rush's Chronicles last night. I hadn't watched those videos in years. It's amazing how Geddy Lee managed to look like someone in the final stages of AIDS back at a time when no one else had heard of the disease. The man is way ahead of his time. He can't have had AIDS, since he's still around and looking about the same, but he could've fooled anyone.

He kicks ass, though, both then and now, as a singer. Pert is arguably the best drummer out there, which doesn't hurt Rush at all, either.

Nice nostalgic trip down Memory Lane. I'll have to see about buying the DVD. What I saw was a loaner VHS. The DVD's supposed to have a couple of extra songs, too.

Being called out to a possible HazMat situation at 11pm is all part of a firefighter's day. Being told, after the assistant chief parks the firetruck you're in a few yards from the involved vehicle, that the possible hazardous material is a frigging timebomb ticking away is not cool. Stupid, crazy bastard of a truck driver was lying, but we didn't know that till a very tense hour had come and gone. Hope the asshole spends some nice, quality time being somebody's bitch in jail. Federal offense.

Made me think, though. What if this was just a trial run, with somebody watching to see how we all responded, and what everyone did, how many units came out, etcetera? The asshole was of European stock, not Middle Eastern, but that's not an automatic conclusion builder anymore. Crazies come from all backgrounds.

The good thing was seeing my buddies' reactions throughout the whole shebang. I'm not too good at trusting other folks when it comes to my skin until I see them in a real situation. This one certainly classified as such, and no one behaved in anything less than what I would want from people I'm likely to depend on in similar situations in the future. Same goes for me, needless to say. But I already knew how I react when the shit hits the fan.

Of students, and learning and other mediocrities

New York City is in the midst of a huge battle between proponents of a new provision which would disallow social promotion by age at schools, for certain grades, and opponents to this proposal, who want children to be passed along to the next grade automatically, regardless of whether they know jack shit about what they should know or not.

This is so symptomatic of almost everything wrong with the U.S. nowadays that it's almost too painful to watch. Needless to say, the majority seem to be against doing the rational thing, and isn't that always the case? On the radio this morning I could hear the offended parents and students chanting, "We want democracy! We want democracy!". To all you morons shouting that, let me tell you... You don't want democracy. Have the honesty to say what it is you want. Go ahead. Let's hear you all chant, "We want mediocrity! We want mediocrity!" That's what I was hearing the whole time.

When did it become undemocratic to insist on a minimum achievement in order to be granted admittance to a more advanced level of learning? Why would I allow a child to enter the 4th grade if that child is incapable, due to not having the basic knowledge and skills, to understand 4th grade material? Why are the clueless parents and teachers not seeing that if we do allow unprepared children to pass through the system, they'll come out at the end still unprepared, only instead of needing to make up one year, they'll need to make up their whole education. Years and years. Or more reaslistically, since no one at that point is going back to the start and doing it over right, they'll be unable to compete in the job market, further burdening our system, as well as allowing more jobs to be offshored to other countries that have more exacting standards.

I remember at school when something wasn't done correctly the teacher would point it out and request it be fixed. This would be repeated until it was done right or, in a very few cases, a classmate was left behind. They repeated that grade and came out a better person for it, prepared to tackle the next grade more effectively. Nowadays, if a kid says 2 plus 2 equals 5, woe to the teacher who doesn't put a nice spin on it. Telling the little tykes that this is incorrect is apparently frowned upon, supposedly because it will bruise the child's self-esteem. Come again? Being wrong isn't bad for self-esteem. Not being able to land any job except flipping burgers once you finish your education, on the other hand, that might fuck up your self-esteem a little bit. Rarely seems to, though, from the sort of people I've seen working such jobs.

How many criminals, drug addicts, panhandlers, prostitutes and the like are a direct product of the system promoting them grade after grade despite the child being at a complete loss after the first few years? What options are left open to such a child when they want to enter the workforce? What sort of parent sees this as a desirable thing for their child?

How will America compete in a global economy if more and more of our future workforce is coming out dumb as rocks? Small wonder that a lot of what used to be considered safe, intellectual type jobs are moving to places like India, Malaysia and Australia. They actually educate their kids over there, not just bump them up willynilly grade after grade and hope that intelligence and abilities will somehow be generated within them by some mystical process.

America doesn't need terrorists to bring her down. We can do it on our own, if we continue down this road a few more generations.

Lots of noise from both camps these past days over Kerry's comments. You know, where he said that several 'foreign leaders' he had spoken to had said they supported him and hoped he would beat President Bush.

Everybody and his pet monkey seems to be insisting that Kerry disclose who these foreign leaders might be. Idiots. Isn't it obvious? Here's the list I built using plain common sense:

1. Saddam Hussein (he doesn't say foreign leaders still in office, does he?)
2. Kim Yong Il
3. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
4. Hugo Chavez
5. Osama Bin Laden (he's a foreign leader, Kerry didn't say it had to be of a country, and this guy's definitely foreign, and he leads)

Of terrorists, and attacks and other assorted inhuman things

The train bombs yesterday in Spain highlight something that most people still haven't gotten. And probably, most people never will. First of all, it pains me to see what happened in Spain, even though I really don't even know anyone living there. Spain is the stronghold of one of my favorite spectacles, that of bull fighting. I spent many a weekend with my very best friends at one plaza de toros or another, drinking cheap wine mixed with brandy, ogling spectacular women and watching bullfighters do their thing. Some few times, a bullfighter and bull were sublime, turning what might be seen as stockyard work into rare art. Other times there was more bull than fighter, or not enough bull, but glimmers of what it aspired to could still be seen, here and there, during the faena, which made it all worthwhile.

For that reason alone, I will always love Spain and feel some of her spirit run through my veins.

Back to my original point, there's something most people don't grasp. Most of our wars, and by our, I mean humanity's, have been between two or more opposing parties fighting over one scarce resource or another even though the apparent reasons they state for the conflict were often not the real ones. Still, ultimately, both sides were capable of understanding the other, even if they remained at odds. This war against terrorism is unlike most past conflicts. It is between two parties so different in their very mentality that a case might be made that one or the other is no longer human. It is a sort of evolution happening before us, and Darwin will prevail. The fittest will survive. It's just not too clear right now which side will prove the more fit.

I saw this happen in Colombia. Heck, it's still happening down there. They have a guerrilla called the FARC that have been pillaging and looting the country for decades. The guerrillas violate every human right you can think of, but since they're outlaws to begin with, what's one more crime? Meantime, the government tries to fight back, but they get hit with human rights violations left and right, both from the U.N. as well as every single NGO you can think of. I've always felt that in order to deserve that your human rights be respected, you have to be human. If you don't respect other people's human rights, you should, by definition, cease to be considered human.

I've tried, unsuccessfully, to transmit this idea to other people in the past. Sooner or later the powers that be will have to wise up or face the fact that they will no longer have any power. The solution to the terrorist problem is pretty clear to me.

Find them. Kill them using any means necessary. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

You know Osama's in a certain area of Afghanistan? Cool. Nuke it.

You know the Saudi's are secretly supporting Al Qaeda. Tell them they have 1 week to present Osama, dead or alive, to U.S. authorities. If the week passes with no delivery, nuke one of their holy places, but not Mecca. Save that for the 3rd time they fail to deliver.

If anybody complains about human rights, or something (this is for you, France*), bomb them, but not with nukes, people like the French classify as humans, they're just whining, not attacking us.

I guarantee we won't have to bomb or nuke too many areas. People will get the picture all too quickly.

The alternative, if we don't have the balls to do this, is a war of attrition which we cannot hope to win. And sooner or later, some dirty, unkempt son of a camel humper will manage to get into NYC or somewhere comparable, armed with a pony nuke in a suitcase. And you'll all be sorry you didn't listen to me.

*The French are lucky the attack was in Spain and not in their country. Otherwise, they'd have already surrendered. They need to remember that the only reason they're not speaking German right now is us.

Of work, and ironies and other assorted beasts

This has been an interesting day. My nemesis for the past 2 years has been this big, fat, bald son of a bitch who very much resembles the Kingpin, from the Marvel Universe. This person, if we can call him that, had a lot of power within my customer's organization and as a part of his role was charged with overseeing the contract my company's work is bound by. That made him my defacto boss on the customer side. I have like 3 or 4 different bosses, as is usual in the latest fad theory of management, known as matrixed organizations. I got briefed regarding this person on my first day here. I believe in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt, and will usually treat anyone I meet with respect and cordiality until they prove they should be treated otherwise, if that ever happens. This character managed to get on my shit list within a day or so of my first meeting him. Once you get on my shit list, I'll treat you as if you had a communicable disease, and if it happens to be a customer, higher-up, key colleague or anyone else I am forced by professional considerations to treat with some measure of decorum, they will most definitely feel the contempt I hold them in, but they won't be able to prove anything. The other thing I'll do, is take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself to screw that person over. The level of risk I'm willing to assume in order to screw them over is based on a proprietary mathematical function of my own design which I won't get into right now, but trust me, this sucker had a pretty high score.

During the past two years I've taken every chance offered to prove to his management how clueless and counterproductive-to-the-company he is, all to no avail. It's tough to get an idea across when the rest of their organization is only slightly less braindead. Still, the new owners (customer got bought out lock, stock and barrel last year by another company) have been steadily weeding out the bad apples, and it looks like they finally got to him. Took them long enough. I hope some of what I did helped them arrive at the decision. And I know the order came straight from the top, too. But I don't have details on the whys or wherefores.

Anyway, the company is measurably better now that he's gone, and the collective IQ probably jumped up a notch or two, as well. Good riddance to bad trash. Ironically enough, Billy hated this guy with a vengeance. I wish he'd been here to see it. Although as someone said to me today, he's probably watching and doing a dance of glee from somewhere. I'd promised to outlast the Kingpin here, too, and I'm glad I got the chance to keep that little promise to myself. Don't know how long it'll be before I'm either let go by my employer, or transferred over to another account, but at least I got to see this guy go out the back door.

On a different note, my latest Essentials of Firefighting class centered around hoses, how to use them, how to fold them up, and how to take care of them. Four hours of that. I had no idea there was so much to know about what is, in the end, simply a soft, hollow tubular construct whose sole purpose is to convey water from Point A to Point B. Learning the different ways to fold it up once used, and when and why to use each different way was very interesting. IT (Information Technology, in other words, computer stuff) is definitely boring me to death, so I'd probably find a movie about how cement sets to be entertaining. That last isn't fair, though, for two reasons. First, firefighting is a very interesting field and I'd be enjoying myself regardless of all the rest of the crap. Second, I'm probably not really bored with IT so much as fed up with my crappy employer and my outrageously stupid customer.

One thing soured my Essentials class, though. I hate people who look down on others gratuitously. We're divided into 4 person teams for all the practical work, one of us having been named captain randomly from the start. This class was the first time we'd really had the time to talk among us, and one of the topics that came up was what we did for a living. Now, volunteer fire departments tend to attract blue collar folks, mostly. White collar people tend to either not want to get their hands dirty, or consider the salary we get for being firemen as insufficient. That salary is exactly zero, in case the word 'volunteer' hadn't conveyed that to you yet.

Well, one of the guys is an auto mechanic. Another guy, like me, and that was surprising, is also in IT. The other member of our little team, when asked, said he worked in the city (by that I will always mean NYC), playing pool and chess. We all dutifully chuckled. I never pry, so I was going to leave it at that. Auto mechanic guy bit and asked for an explanation. Turns out that this other guy goes into the city at midnight every day and has as his responsibility to put buses whose service is ending for the day 'to bed'. That is, he parks them at whatever MTA parking lot he works in. He then goes off to play pool, or chess, or jack off, or whatever else strikes his fancy, before returning to work at 5am to 'wake up' the buses, and hand them over to the morning shift's drivers. He then goes back home. Home being a 2 hour drive back to PA.

Auto mechanic guy couldn't understand why someone would make such a drive, and at such an ungodly hour, for that sort of job. That's understandable, auto mechanic guy being a young kid. Young kid to me always means clueless moron who thinks he knows everything. I explained that salaries in the city, or really, outside PA, period, are 3 times better than anything comparable within the state. Everyone else nodded at the obvious. MTA guy then added that this was a great job which he'd had to strive for in order to get, and was a vast improvement over his prior job.

That's when auto mechanic dude asked him, incredulously, "Improvement! What was your last job, opening doors?" It was the way he said it. I would have seriously hurt him had we not been in a Firemen's Training Center where that would have probably gotten me kicked out of the training, and the department. You don't make fun of how people make an honest living. Ever.

The closedmindedness of the typical WASP-type American becomes tiresome all too soon. And the contempt they usually have for work they somehow think is beneath them is the main reason why the country is fast filling up with illegal immigrants who are willing to do these jobs. The illegal immigrants' kids, though, go to school, have citizenship granted and go on to take the 'good' jobs away from the WASP kids by the next generation, which is something the WASP-types are too blind and clueless to see. A fitting punishment, indeed. I foresee within a generation or two we'll have the auto mechanic's kids parking the buses in MTA's parking lots, and MTA dude's kids not only fixing cars, if they care to, but also probably practicing medicine and doing other things WASP-types consider worthy work.

Today we'll look and ponder 'pon current events, just for the hell of it.

The Martha Stewart case has to be about the most amusing piece of comeuppance seen in a while. Despite what most people think, she was not judged guilty of insider trading. The dumb twat was judged guilty of lying to the Feds. This has to be one of the most ironic and hilarious twists of fate. First off, Martha gets a tip from her broker, apparently, that Imclone stock was going to tank. Her broker knew this because the CEO of Imclone also employed his services, and said CEO was desperately dumping his holdings in the company. Martha immediately ordered her broker to get rid of her holdings in Imclone. Now, here's the first funny part... The only one really guilty of insider trading so far is the CEO of Imclone, who was dumping the stock on account of his knowledge that the FDA was going to issue a bad report on one of the drugs they had in the pipeline. Stupid Martha got a tip from her broker, just as you, dear reader, might get a tip from me. Tips are not illegal. Let's continue... Martha dumps her stock to avoid taking a loss of around fifty thousand dollars. The Feds take a look at Imclone's CEO's convenient sell off right before the stock tanked, and start investigating him. They also notice that, lo and behold, stupid Martha dumped some stock almost at the same time. They decide to ask her a few questions. Now, here's where it gets to be fun. If Martha had told the truth, she'd have probably been subpoenaed as a witness for the prosecution against Imclone's CEO. Instead, she chose to say she knew nothing and hadn't received any tip at all. From anyone. Phone records plus testimony ended up exposing her as a liar. By the time this happened, her own company's stock had tanked as a result of the ensuing scandal, racking up millions of dollars in losses for Martha. Thank God she managed to protect those fifty thousand dollars she might have lost if she hadn't dumped that Imclone stock! Now we get to the second funny bit. The Feds, knowing Martha had lied to them, and since lying to the Feds is a crime, decide to prosecute her. Note that the first crime she committed in this whole sordid tale of corporate greed was lying to the Feds. The actual thing with the tip and selling the stock was no crime at all.

After an amusing trial, much coverage, and everybody and his uncle enjoying how Martha's been dragged through the mud, she's declared guilty of lying to the Feds. Not of insider trading, I stress again. Third funny thing... She's now a convicted felon, and as such, legally unable to serve on the board of any publicly traded company. Such as her own company, Martha Stewart Living. And it gets better. Her TV show's been cancelled, too, right after the verdict was out. Ouch!

The only bright spot for her has to be the fifty thousand she avoided losing by selling that crappy Imclone stock, right? Wrong! Fourth funny thing... Looks like the FDA was a bit premature in judging Imclone's drug unsuitable. Turns out that a second round of testing came up with some pretty good results. The stock is trading pretty much around what it was before Imclone's CEO decided to dump his holdings and started this whole merry-go-round! And finally, she's set to be sentenced, and this will probably include some jail time. Man... Someone's going to get to have Martha as their bitch.

Now, I've got to confess, seeing someone as prissy, conceited, stuck-up and all around megabitch as Martha is getting all this done to them does give me a rush. And apparently, it gives the rest of the country a huge rush, too. Why is this?

America has this huge love-hate relationship with their Gods. Those being the myriad celebrities that are raised up by the mediocre tastes of the consumers. These celebrities are usually idiot savants who do one single thing, but this one thing they do is executed sublimely. They either act, or sing, or write or bare their body, or any other trick that a large block of the paying public likes enough to either pay for directly, or submit to the dubious privilege of having ads for sponsoring products paraded before them during all too long intermissions interspersed between rounds of a celebrity's performance. The public will then lionize the celebrity, who will, for a while, be unable to do any wrong in the eyes of its followers. Yes, it. Celebrities at this point are no longer people, they are entities. Mindless constructs built up by their PR flacks.

After a while, though, resentment sets in. What was unconditional love starts souring. This is further egged on by the celebrity starting to think that since they have godlike abilities in this one thing that they know how to do, then they are obviously so much more knowledgeable and better than anyone else on whatever subject strikes their fancy, as well as being above mere mortal laws. That's when you get entertainers presuming to let the rest of us know how we should really be behaving. Or how the country should be run. Or how wars should be fought. They forget that they are who they are, and they earn as much as they earn, precisely because the world is run the way it is, and people behave the way they do. They stumble out of their small, narrow area of expertise and sooner or later, something runs them over.

Hanoi Jane with her Vietnam activities...
Martha with her Imclone stock...
Janet with her hideous boob...
The Pope with his 10 year old catamite*...

Anyway, the only thing Americans love more than their celebrities, is seeing those selfsame celebrities eat shit and be dragged down to the level of the rest of the people.

The main difference between the rest of the people and someone like me, is that I recognize this and deal with it up front. I don't rationalize it the way everyone else does.

*I think this one hasn't broken out on the news yet, has it?

The internet is full of garbage. In fact, if you're looking for a perfect analogy to be used in describing the internet to someone who's, I don't know, been lost in the jungle for the past decade or two, a garbage dump would do better than the majority of analogies I've seen used. Only the watchman at this particular dump is anal retentive and can always point you in the right direction if you tell him what sort of trash you're looking for. And, as with real life garbage dumps, you micht stumple upon a diamond ring, or something else of high value, while you're digging around the muck.

Over the years, I've found a lot of good resources on the internet. Good, reliable sources of hard to find and/or specialized information. I usually bookmark these, but rarely look them over. I think I'll create a page here just for these important links so I can check up on them every now and then.

Here's a good example of one of these links, which I found yesterday: Ancient Scripts.

After I build my link page, I'll then have to make a decision on whether to link it here, so anyone can look at it, or have it hidden just for my use or, most probably, create two lists, a public one and an occult one.

For the first time in the Gods know how long, I went out drinking near where I live. Had a blast. I learned some pretty amazing things about a couple of friends of mine. Who'd have thought G had 2 assholes?

Training yesterday was great. I had serious doubts and issues with a sequence Sensei taught us last week. Sensei being in Japan this week, my training partners and I just practiced our moves. At one point we compared notes, and we found that all 3 of us had doubts regarding the sequence, which is one of the longest ones we've learned yet; but each of us had doubts on a different part of it. Once we showed each other the part we had down pat and we combined them, we had the full sequence and we (finally) understood the whole thing, as well as its purpose.

Spent most of today at Billy's funeral service after which we all ended up at his firehouse for a memorial lunch. A lot of people came, including some that drove a very long distance in order to make it. I was completely surprised by the large turnout. I guess I wasn't alone in thinking he was a great guy. Most of the anecdotes were about how he loved to piss people off. We shared that hobby.

I'll wrap up the day by submitting my labor hours for today into my company's timesheet system as if I had worked the full day. I know Billy would've approved of that.

Took a model firetruck from Billy's cube, along with one of his business cards. It's sad when you think that anything personal a guy has in his cube is probably because he has significant attachment to it. That's not the sad part. The sad part is knowing that most of that stuff will have no value to anyone else, so it will probably end up being trashed. I look at the stuff I have in my office, and everything that's not furniture falls into one of the following categories:

a) Work shit.
b) Mementos I value for one reason or another, most of which have a story attached to them which only I, or sometimes a very small number of people, know.
c) Stuff that's piled up and which will soon be junked or taken home.

The problem is, someone coming in would have no way of telling items in category b from ones in category c, except for a few that are placed in spots which clearly show I am attached to them. And most of the b's have absolutely no intrinsic value, especially without knowledge of the story behind them.

I think Billy valued his little, plastic firetruck. I'll hang on to it and continue valuing it for him.

My friend Billy's cubicle, 2 days after his untimely death... I'll have to go there and pick something out for myself, as a keepsake, before the morons here decide to take everything out to a dumpster or something. Gotta remember to ask his widow if she wants any of his stuff or not...

With this bubble wrap applet, the internet has finally matured enough so that I will be absolutely unable to get any work done, ever.

Yesterday was a dark day. A woman I have never met face to face and only spoken to once before called me and asked for me by name when I answered. I told her it was me speaking, and she started crying. "Billy passed away today", she said. "He mentioned you a lot", she continued, "and I know you two spent some time together at the Firehouse last night. He came home very happy about that". We spoke for some time, and she gave me the details on how her husband had died, while vacationing near my place with her, a son and a granddaughter.

Billy was one of the 3 or 4 non-assholes here at work. He was highly excentric, good at his job and didn't take kindly to fools. My first week on this job, while I was doing some knowledge transfer with the guy I was replacing, Henry, he barged into my office and sat down. He introduced himself, chitchatted a few minutes and left. Henry gave me some of his background, mostly to explain why he was not liked too much by the customer and to stress that he was one of the few trustworthy people here.

Billy was definitely a difficult person. He didn't go out of his way to make others feel good, as is the norm in today's politically correct world. If you were being a moron, he'd tell you to your face. And his appearance did not conform to what the customer thinks is appropriate for the office. They let him know that, too. Many, many times. He ignored them beautifully. I know because I, too, was approached by the customer and requested to ask Billy to conform. I told the customer that I saw nothing wrong with his appearance, and that our company's codes certainly weren't being violated and besides, I was more concerned with Billy's on the job performance which was flawless. I never told Billy this. He'd have gone ballistic on the customer and then I probably would have had to intervene, against Billy. While I wasn't Billy's direct manager, he did report to me dotted line, which is my company's way of saying I should manage him, but someone else gets the credit.

If Billy was tough to get along with, I do recognize I'm an even tougher one. Yet he was about the only one here that I'd regularly sit down to have lunch with. I've always prefered to eat alone. I made the exception for him, gladly, since he mentioned one time how hurt he was that all the 40 something assholes who work for our same employer would regularly walk by him on their way out to lunch and never once said, "Hey, Billy, you had lunch yet? Want to join us?" Well, I never go out for lunch, I always bring something in and eat at my desk. It became second nature to ask Billy to join me, sometimes in my office, other times we'd take our lunches down to the cafeteria.

I was thus privileged to get to know an amazing man. Bitter, at times, since life regularly dealt him bum hands, but never defeated. Always head held high. Despite the problems he'd have, he always made sure to give more than he took. There wasn't a bad bone in the guy and he'd always come through for you if you needed anything.

As time went on, I got his grudging respect due to the way I handled myself and my outlook on life in general. To the point where he started telling me about his other "job". You see, Billy was a volunteer firefighter, too. He more or less convinced me of joining up in my township. So in a way, I guess I'll help keep his memory alive by continuing to do something that, as a matter of fact, I'm enjoying a hell of a lot.

On Monday night, I took him over to the Firehouse where I'm a volunteer firefighter. He sat around for our meeting, and I introduced him to the chief, and the rest of the guys. The chief and Billy started hobnobbing about old times, and going over the stack of "heirlooms" all firehouses accumulate over the years. I know he had a great time, since he not only told me so, but went on to tell his wife about it, too. I'm glad I could make his last night a happy one.

I am proud of having known him, even if for just a short time. I am deeply saddened at having lost a friend. My sympathy goes out to his family and friends.

Billy was one of the great ones...

What was it that Yama said in Zelazny's Lord of Light, after dispatching Lord Mara? "Bow, all of you, one of the mighty has fallen on this day." Or something to that effect.

I am normally as apolitical as possible, since I consider myself to be miles above any sort of human concern. Even so, I will poke fun at any and all outrageous, stupid, hilarious and/or amusing situations our leaders, elected or otherwise, fall prey to. I've done this many times in the short time this blog has been up, as well as for untold years back in the real world.

That said, some have commented that I've slowly been evolving a specific political stance and have lately not been averse to voicing it. That's partly true. I mean, I've always had a firm idea on how things should be done, and what government's powers and limits should be. I've just rarely voiced it before since one incompetent nincompoop is usually as good (or as bad) as any other, as far as I'm concerned. And that last segment is the kicker, "as far as I'm concerned". In normal times, how concerned I am is usually not much. I mean, no matter who holds an elected spot right now, or which party's in power, basic things need to get done and will get done. The economy needs to be shepherded, justice meted out, citizen concerns heard, etc.

The only time I'll come out of political hiding and actually support a candidate is during abnormal times. Times when there is a grave risk that one candidate might completely fuck everything up and that there's a chance that this candidate might get elected.

We've got an idiot in the White House right now, there's no doubt about that. But he's an idiot with the right idea at the right time. This isn't the time to appease our enemies or be reasonable and discuss things.

Kerry's a greater danger than Osama right now.

Now that I've given a brief update on things firefighter related, let me share news regarding another of my interests, bujutsu, or fighting techniques.

I am learning so much regarding this, that I am forced to admit that I really hadn't known a whole lot before. Formally, at any rate. There's a lot of techniques that I've instinctively used in the past which are similar to what I am learning now. The ones I am learning are superior to those I'd stumbled upon, though. More simple and effortless, as well as way more efficient and decisive. Then again, some of the stuff I am learning has no comparison to anything I'd known before and borders on the occult. For example, I learned yesterday how to drop someone by exerting force with just my index finger. If I'd seen the style in a movie, I'd have laughed at the stupidity of it and immediately switched channels. Having it done against me was an eyeopener.

It makes me wonder if there isn't some truth behind the legendary technique known only as the finger death, where a blow struck lightly on a certain spot with one finger was supposed to have caused instant (or in some versions of the legend a delayed and very painful) death.

This morning, way, way before dawn, we had a truck roll over and play dead on the interstate. No injuries, but a nice fuel spill which could've turned nasty if we hadn't contained it as quick as we did. So I got to play fireman, for a while. I'm able to do more and more on these incidents as my training on Essentials of Firefighting moves along. Before, I mainly helped out carrying stuff for the other guys; now, I'm starting to be allowed on the front line, which is good.

I got a chance today to surprise the shit out of one of the young guys, too, as a bonus. In order to contain the fuel spill, we have these big barrels of sand or gravel or something like that, which we pour around the spill, so it doesn't spread any further. Then we pour more on top of it so the sand absorbs the fuel, and the work crew coming along later can just shovel it up and get rid of it. Well, this young firefighter, in his early 20s, grabbed one of these barrels off our rescue vehicle, staggered out with it, then asked me to grab it by the side so we could both carry it to the scene. I misheard. I thought he was asking me to take it. So I just grabbed it underneath and took it away from him. I'm way stronger than I look. I did not stagger. I didn't find it even close to my limit, to be honest. The kid just walked along side me as I took it to where it was needed, explaining that he had just wanted to share the load, not hand it off completely. But the way he was now looking at me was priceless. I saw doubletakes on a few of the other guys who happened to look our way, too. And the story will spread.

There is an aspect of me, which I've never been successful in totally erradicating, which delights in impressing the natives.