Idle Thoughts

Did you know that old men with cowboy hats have an insatiable desire to comment on how large I am? Mostly it is a "no shit" sort of comment. The one where they look at me and say something to the effect of "Gee, you are tall!"

Here are some of the other things they have said:
"You are as big as a horse!"
"I bet you had a hard time at school. People like to pick on the big guy, because when a little guy starts something with the big guy he is a hero... but more often then not the big guy wins and nobody cares."
I have been called, "Mongo Jr."

And my favorite, "You don't look like a forklift, but you are definitely big enough!"

All of this has been consistently from older men (40-60 years old, rough estimate) wearing cowboy hats. It is significantly less likely that I will receive a comment about my size from someone who does not meet those two criteria.

I am currently taking suggestions on why this may be (please leave as comments, serious ideas need not apply). My best guess is that they are rodeo/ranch folk, so people my size are a valued commodity and they probably wish their sons were as big as I am.

I'm just glad there are people around to make sure I remember I'm big, because I can't remember things like that on my own.

What else...

Oh yea, one of my "deep" (lol) thoughts for the month has been, "if I had three wishes, what would I wish for." A long time ago in my high school creative writing class we had to write out what we would wish for and why. At the time I wrote that I would wish for a really good dog or a magic AK-47 that never ran out of bullets, things that are useful and hard/impossible to find.

I filled the rest of the page with a rant about people who wish for money, love, etc. (the usual wishes I knew the rest of my class would write about). Basically, I felt that if you had any sense you would (a) wish for the means to attain those things so if they ever ran out you have the ability to get more and (b) were cheating if you actually wished for that sort of thing.

I mean, really, money isn't worth half as much if you don't earn it. That doesn't mean I won't buy lotto tickets, but wish for something meaningful and you can get money through it. "I wish I was a great inventor," for example. At least then you are doing good for the world at the same time. This goes quadruple for the 'love' wishes, and many wish-based television shows have even acknowledged that wishing to force people to love you is just plain bullshit and is against the rules.

World Peace is a bullshit wish. Much of the progression of mankind will depend on how we work out this sort of thing, so wishing away such a huge problem like that is probably a bad idea in the long run. Also, war has its uses...

I still consider the immortality wish. I'm not sure if I would want it or not... But that is a discussion I don't feel like typing out now...

I've considered what I would want to wish for now, and haven't progressed much from when I was a teen.

1. I wish that I had a magical rifle that never ran out of bullets. (I no longer want an AK, but haven't thought up a new breed to replace it.)
2. I wish that I had a really good dog who would last as long as I do.

But here's the new one.

3. I wish that I will always have as much strength as I need.

This one is actually a magic power my brother gave to a character in one of his stories, and I thought it was a really cool idea. It's not, "I wish I were really strong," or even " I wish I was the strongest entity on earth." I would just have an inner reserve so there is always a little more.

Now you see why these two thoughts are connected.

Assuming you had to wish by the rules I laid out (things that were either normally impossible or extremely rare, none of that "Get Out of Effort Free!" cheating!) what would you wish for?

Consumer Whore

Hello gentle reader,

Today I bring to you a music recommendation so that Downtown Records might grow corpulent upon your hard earned money.

The album in question is St. Elsewhere by a mysterious pseudonym "Gnarls Barkley" which hides Danger Mouse and some guy named Cee-Lo. Some of you might recognize Danger Mouse's name from the Danger Doom album much plugged by my fellow whores, Adult Swim.

I really enjoyed most of the songs on this album, and you should at least give it a glance through a downloading service or the music samples available at the above Amazon.com link, I think you'll enjoy him to.

My favorite songs are probably "Go Go Gadget Gospel" and "Crazy." And my favorite line is, "I can do a dance that will make the sky cry blood!" Which comes from "Storm Coming."

Check it out.

(Links stolen blatantly from Amazon.com's samples.)

Daydreams

I often catch myself daydreaming during long periods of boredom. The eight hour drive to or from school often leaves me open to think.

Usually my daydreams are horrifically violent, often involving me heroically killing a small army of assailants. Things like, "What would I do if armed gunmen attacked the student center if I were in ."

My most recent one is what I would do if a number of gunmen (terrorists with a bomb, counterstrike-style) attacked Lowes, and I had to defend it using only the resources available to me in my department.

Generally this means using the gardening tools to ambush a lone gunman or small group and scavenge their weapons. "Gardening tools" meaning a variety of axes and sledgehammers, or possibly a fouchard. I wonder what I could do with a rake...

In the end it just makes me wish we had gasoline in my department so I could use a chainsaw (or even the super cool Chainsaw-on-a-stick!).




God I'm bored.

Hooray For Nigeria

For some reason the UMM website has died horribly. Before that happened, I got this
peice of email, which I saved because, well, it was special.


GREETINGS TO YOU
MAY THE BLESSINGS
OF GOD BE WITH YOU
AS YOU READTHIS MAIL.
EMAIL:motherhannah111@yahoo.com
I am mother HANNAH, a widow to late ANDREW GABRIEL, I am 60 yrs
old, I am now a newchristian convert, suffering from long time cancer
of the breast, fromall indication my condition is really deteriorating
and it's quiteobvious that I won't live more than ten months,
According
to mydoctors. This is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very
bad
stage .My late husband killed during the U.S raid againstterrorism in
Afghanistan, and during the period of our marriage we hada 23 yrs old
son
who died in an auto crash three years ago.
My latehusband was very wealthy and after his death i inherited all
hisbusiness and wealth. The doctor has advice me that I may not live
formore than then months, so i now decided to devide the part ofthis
wealth, to contribute to the development of the chruchin
africa,America,Asia and also in europe.
I prayed over it. I amwilling to donate the sum of Fifteen million
United State Dollars(USD$15,000,000) to the less privileged. Please I
want you to note thatthis fund is lying in a security company and upon
my instruction, myattorney who presently is in NIGERIA where the fund
is
deposited,will file in an
application for the transfer of the money in yourname.
Lastly, I honestly pray that this money when transfered will beused
for the said purpose, because I have come to find out thatwealth
acquisition without christ is vanity. May the Grace of our LordJesus
the
love of God and the fellowship of God be with you and yourfamily. I
await
your urgent reply.
Yours In Christ.
MOTHER HANNAH GABRIEL


Just brings you to tears, doesn't it? I mean, this poor woman is dieing of cancer, is a devout christian, and has a
huge sum of money that needs to be transferred from nigeria.
I think the pun that the fund was 'lying' in a security fund was unintentional...
This letter raises so many questions because they try to hit every heartstring of the individual it was intended to scam.
1. This lady is dieing. Hah! Take that!
2. This ladies' husband was killed in the war on terror. Her son in a tragic auto accident.
3. This woman is a Christian.
Now, what the fuck is an millionaire doing fighting in the armed services?
How old are these people that one is dieing of cancer and they have a 23 year old son? She says 60! Now, unless she was robbing the cradle with her millionaire soldier husband, that means that the military sent a 60ish year old man into combat...
At first I thought, huh, this is odd. Then "Nigeria" suddenly appeared to put all the info into context.
Even without knowing the Nigerian scam deal, what the fuck would her lawyer (and the savings of an honest American soldier) be doing in Nigeria of all places?

How stupid are people?

I think the worst part of this one is that it is an offer to have the money donated in your name to charity, which I assume involves my bank account info. Now, the other Nigerians at least have the decency to offer a cut which I probably won't receive. Fucking my name on a charity to build churces for Nigerians! WOO!

Besides, why doesn't she want her name on the donation? Or even why not give an anonymous donation?

Also, "I have come to find out thatwealthacquisition without christ is vanity."

What the fuck does that even mean? Do I need Jesus as my business partner? I already let Jesus into my heart and his cat ruined the place, I don't think I want him in my office.

(I didn't think the Jews were that vain, btw...)

I get a lot of Nigeria-themed emails, anyway.

This got me thinking, I want a job that uses my major, right? These Nigerians need help with their English language usage and the believability of their terrible lies... you see where this is going.

From a moral standpoint, the true victims of these types of scams are stupid people. I, on the other hand, very much hate stupid people. Often I find that stupid people are cause of grief in my life. Because of this, I think that scamming them would actually be compensation for this grief. Really, I am only getting what is fair to me.

Anyone know where they take applications?


p.s. Even if I all of this were real, there are enough churches named after some guy named Patrick.

In Other News

Turns out I had left comment moderation on. Not sure when I had turned it on to begin with... probably trying to find some way to remove spam...

Oh well.

I will start work in the "lawn and garden" department, doing something. Probably sales rep and something that involves a forklift.

The more time I spend thumb-twiddling at home the more I wish I were back at school.
The more time I spend doing homework at school the more I wish I were back at home.
Go figure.

Um... what else...

I dunno... more to come.

Hooray!

Well, barring the occurrance that I turn out to be a criminal or a drug addict I have a job with Lowes, which means I will very suddenly be much less fun.

Of course, it will take them another week and a half to run all the checks...

Oh well.