10/31/2013: Propogated by videos like “What the *Bleep* do We Know?” and the Oxygizer water infuser, ideas concerning the “mysterious traits” of H2O are fabricated in a pseudo-science alphabet soup. If water drops look similar in an unreproducible experiment, then drinking water MUST have supernatural abilities to interpret human emotion over telephone lines, right? (Gozer the Gozerian isn’t far behind!) This type of misinfo spreads because it is intriguing, but muddies our relationship to science.

10/30/2013: That’s kind of what gets me about the whole fracking thing: underground rivers, natural caverns, plate tectonics, commercial piping, and nearby mines could all complicate the unseen landscape of layered sediment (where drinking water comes from). There’s no way of knowing where harmful chemicals end up so, like any new technology, it’s under-regulated and the ramifications are largely unstudied. It’s funny that people get pissy at California for not exploiting its pristine beauty….

10/29/2013: I’ve been flabbergasted by sinkholes today. Whether it’s the shocking natural phenomena in the case[s] of Guatemala or the shortsighted man-made disasters in Lake Peigneur and Bayou Corne, it’s terrifying to see the earth shift below your feet, swallow buildings, and even reverse rivers. (Mining seems hazardous for states sitting below sea level.) If you get a chance check out the soaring plateaus of Guyana, many created by enormous sinkholes. Fascinating geography.

10/28/2013: Civil Disobedience Act #315: You can inadvertantly steal soda if your gift card has enough for one bottle but you mash the machine’s button. You too can accidentally say, “Damn the man”, if you’re too thirsty to monitor your jittery spamming.

10/27/2013: …Seriously. It’s one thing to have Bono’s ego send the U-2 spy plane plummeting into Russian soil during the Cold War, but it’s another to wiretap your (at least for now) allied foreign dignitaries. The icing on the cake? Germany might agree to an American-proposed ban on international espionage. This is us: “Hey now that you caught me spying, how ’bout you don’t catch me spying again?” NSA: 0, Gryffindor: 17

10/26/2013: The U.S. has officially become that weird uncle who tenaciously insists on hugging pubescent nieces. He is notorious for sidling conversations, having ill-formed political views on literally everything, and quitting his manufacturing job to put all eggs in real estate while loudly thrusting advice on those just wanting to avoid eye contact over a Thanksgiving meal. Furthermore, our creepy Uncle Sam lobs rocks at “the A-rabs” and is thwarted by technology/paperwork though he is known to tap his allies’ phones.

10/25/2013: The web is a hotbed of steaming vitriol. It might have occured to you, but just like an abused child exacts cruelty onto a pet or a frat inductee goes wild upon unshouldering the yoke of religious parenting, so too do netizens unload their souls -blackened from troubled lives- onto the first unsuspecting victims with differing opinions. Havoc is our therapy. Anonymity is our tool. The rage must go somewhere and I can imagine worse ways for the masses to come to terms with an unfair world.

10/24/2013: What seems to be clear innuendo [in hindsight] has infiltrated our common linguistics under the veil of general misinterpretation. “Nice guys finish last”, “Don’t bite my head off”, and, “Blow our load”, have been erroneously uttered out of their respective sexual context for years, causing hilariously awkward moments (though educational) with grandma or just slamming steel shutters on the conversation’s momentum. Mostly, the words are used by the naive in seeking “colorful” language.

10/23/2013: What professors will have us believe is that Wikipedia is not a valid source, since -in theory- any netizen can edit an article to their evil, squallid little heart’s content. In reality, entries are pain-stakingly vetted for accuracy and written in neutral voice to combat bias. Not even news stations retain this professionalism these days so the shadow conspiracy regarding your term paper is evident: Wikipedia is awesome, and one needs only click the bottom links to find/use teacher-approved references.

10/22/2013: I’m not understanding how the government health care system will work. Since insurance is a business, they can either A) make the mandatory tax adjustment to all our paychecks and cover a few citizens or B) sign more healthy than sick people, thus making profits to alleviate the national debt. But since they’re covering folks with pre-existing conditions and those who can’t get insurance another way, the normal requirements for a money-making formula are absent. What’s the official plan?

10/21/2013: Regarding Day 1 problems for the ObamaCare site…. Right. Just like most huge multiplayer game releases or even my work in supporting educational databases. This technical bullshit happens. With any luck, they’ll smooth the kinks before insurance season arrives. I feel bad for their tech support whom shoulder burdening influxes of political Americans -who’ve been on hold an hour- each time the president mentions the 1-800 number. Might even have some harrying prank calls from Republican defenders.

10/20/2013: The most cringingly appropriate restaurant fact I’ve gleaned in flipping channels is that a midwestern establishment describes itself as “Red, White, and Blue: Red-necked, White trash, and Blue collar.” Only since Cracked.com’s revelation that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house was converted into gourmet dining do I question whether I prefer the cannibalistic culture of incestuous mutants over the gauche absurdity of eating within a horror movie centerpiece. Decisions, decisions.

10/19/2013: It’s that time of year again. Not only has National Public Radio suspended it’s programming to push membership like girl scout cookies, they’re aggressively guilting me that their station’s white noise substitutes the looped pop-rock that would otherwise accompany that five minute drive to the grocery store. I draw the line when stuffy radio hosts label me “moocher” for not donating, as if two shits are given regarding their “entertainment” pieces already vampiring my tax dollars.

10/18/2013: The long-running “pocket monsters” series has exhausted all available colors and now defaults to alphabetical titles. Pokemon red, green, blue, yellow, gold, silver, crystal, ruby, emerald, fire-red, leaf-green, heart-gold, soul-silver, black and Pokemon white (in addition to spin-offs and direct sequels to these colors) won’t die unlike its rival for un-inspired rehashes: the Police Academy movies. Poxemon X and Y are so cute I could puke, but too boring to glance at long enough to induce vomiting.

10/17/2013: A romantic relationship ideally subsists on three connections: a solid friendship in which you enjoy the other day-to-day, an emotional interest in that person’s well-being/success, and a physical connection. You can limp by with a fraction of that stool but when one leg starts to wobble, the rest can follow suit. Something that goes mostly unspecified is that egomaniacs, the dependant, the quiet, the ambitious, the short, the analytical, the flatulent, the jealous, and the ugly are pretty much doomed.

10/16/2013: On that note, I always wondered why utilizing their bodies or being the teasing lust of a guy’s focus was never considered “empowering” to women. I mean, they control the zipper and all…. Although real-world sluts’ actions can give loser-dudes unrealistic expectatons of other women, it’s a nice contrast in proposing that people are unilaterally diverse. Most women can echo my sentiment of, “Down with business, educational, and personal discrimination. But up with being desired.”

10/15/2013: For that matter, porn is porn. Let’s not freak out. I personally feel that a prostitute is as legitimate a profession (and historically older) than a pornstar, so the lengths that people must traverse to get their rocks off is contradictory to a biological impetus to do so. This has proven politically unstable to support since condemnation is much easier than admitting weakness in the face of bulbous mammories (women SHAN’T have power over our patriarchal society!), but it has, and will, always exist.

10/14/2013: I picked up Dragon’s Crown knowing that it was a jiggle-fest of fan service baked into a gorgeously rendered beat-em-up. Aside from other equally-exaggerated grotesqueries of misproportioned men in this game, it’s painfully obvious that the teleporting witch and suggestive mermaids aren’t real-life females. Gratuitous fantasy? Yes. Pandering? Hell, yes. Hurtful to feminists’ movement? No. Sex is to be enjoyed, so I see no wrong in supplying a product for this demographic. Buy it or ignore it.

10/13/2013: There are few better feelings than knowing you’re absolutely essential to the office meeting its customers’ demands…. even though they verbally committed to laying you off months ago. I’m coasting, a smile creeping my face as the legitimately large workload sneaks up in the period I was supposed to have been given the axe. Oh, it’ll happen. Of that I’m sure. And maybe this time next year will see the product ineptly handled by confused foreigners with an inadequate script, but for now I’m just smiling.

10/12/2013: Are Video Games art? I agree with Mike Krahulik who affirms that 80 artists working a single project over a few years can’t be called anything else. Furthermore, just as music or pictures can be adored or felled by fans of their media something, anything, can be art if its qualities reach a person or compel them to call it that. Cooking is an art. Gardening can be an art. It’s the personal touches the artisan instills that converts mundane things into a chord which strikes another’s essence. They’re art.

10/11/2013: It’s such a prominent philosophy that I must ask how relevant “are humans inherently good or evil?” is. Whereas the first term is synonymous with “average” and the second invokes depictions of moustache twirling, I can only reconcile the idea if it postulates humans as being predominantly assholes or not. Dissecting further, I’d define “asshole” as being invariably self-centered, which is most definitely everyone since we’re not bees. Obviously, we’re a mixed bag of part-time assholics. Case closed.

10/10/2013: Never underestimate the power of Boredom. In other circles it might be phrased as, “Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop”, meaning that the greatest of sins (or even grassroot movements) may be committed because there’s nothing new on tv. Let’s pray that Fox’s fall lineup has enough opiate to sedate the masses, lest civil unrest be wrought from twitchy digits. The next national sporting event should prove sufficient.

10/9/2013: I hate door-to-door Mormons. Being a generous sort, I tend to listen to a solicitor’s recitations (even when it’s a peddled religion) following it with a polite “no thank you”. In that one incident, however, the zealots in their black slacks openly ridiculed both me and my apartment at the time, asking how not being part of their church was working out. From then on, I give the stink eye to penguin pairs on their bikes when I can, especially when they infiltrate the exit gate for my community.

10/8/2013: I admit joy at the furloughs. Not only will people relearn what our bloated government actually does (and was created to do), but appreciation for food inspection, national parks, and air traffic control may increase. Congress is outright slaughtering their own reputation and I expect a deserved backlash for the pandering, pork, and over-use of crutches such as public sector jobs as stimulus. These measures invoke the extreme scrutiny, penny-pinching, and revamping that we are in dire need of.

10/7/2013: Like any good problem, cancers are largely preventable, revealing that a “cure” for the cause is presently within grasp. The American Cancer Society states that their majority aren’t hereditary and that tobacco, diet/exercise, UV over-exposure, radiation, and carcinogens found in building materials or pollution are at fault. So…. clean living, sunscreen, and NOT dumping toxins into our environment and hair dyes stops proliferation? “What do I look like, a giant fag hippie? Gimme a pink ribbon.”

10/6/2013: America loves its boobs. Despite ranking in the top 3 for survivability (90% live rate among 24 other cancers), Breast Walks and “awareness months” don’t let up, pooling revenue for those I know not whom. Like a city tollway paying for its own construction, I doubt that donational requests will cease even after a “cure” is found, but one must wonder how much money is required before the Holy Grail of the medical industry is discovered. For no obvious reason, I’m collecting Coke tabs as requested.

10/5/2013: As divorced as I am from food channels and cooking competitions due to my limited taste-imagination, the “healthy eating” tidal wave (with Gordon Ramsay surfing its hair-sprayed quaff) heralds the movement which opposes reputations as a Fast Food Nation. To maintain buoyancy in a shifting social conscious, McDonalds re-hashes big sellers like the McRib (a fibrous putty squished into a textured vice) and a new contender: McNuggets with bones shoved into them like meat popsicles. It might work.

10/4/2013: Who are we if not the unfiltered words, thoughts, and actions of a body, regardless of mind state? If it’s difficult to reconcile that good people do shitty things without the crutch of misappropriating blame, maybe it’d be beneficial to redefine how an individual assigns blame. Does a frequent drunk cease to be a person? What about comas? In blurring the lines between existence and responsibility, mind states remain a modifier, but not a substitute of “you”. My point is that we are more than we want to be.

10/3/2013: It’s outrageous that manufacturing, clerical, and phone support jobs are replaced by either machines or India. Outsourcing is the worst white collar crime but our automated technology is surpassing its people, leaving me with hands up-turned in protest that creating new jobs is pointless if we fuck up our existing opportunities. Machines dispense videos and money, food and panties (Japan), so installing those automated message trees and metal cashiers at Whataburger isn’t doing us any favors.

10/2/2013: Between Buzzfeed and Cracked.com, there’s a lot of “Mind-Blowingly Hilarious Facts about Ridiculous Insanity” occurring. Someone must assume my mind’s integrity is infinitely more fragile than the modestly entertaining distractions presented by a cat GIF compilation and pop culture analysis, respectively. Oh, if only a process existed to reverse the aftermath of brain matter splatter which coats the walls of my cubicle, as it is increasingly futile for my remaining cranium to perpetuate a solid state.

10/1/2013: Altered mind states. Which one will you claim? Whether you drunkenly embarrass yourself, sleepwalk, speak out of anger, or create fantastic art under a drug’s influence, which actions will a person be held responsible for? Temporary insanity has always been a flimsy defense, but it exists. And it is used in a legal social context. The phrase, “You’re not acting like yourself”, can never be true, only the contradiction to what another person expects from your myriad of 14 billion neurons.