click ‘Hello?’ click ‘Hello?’ click ‘Hello?’ etc

typed for your pleasure on 21 November 2005, at 3.28 pm

Sdtrk: ‘You and I’ by Silver apples

Today was my first day at my even newer job! Yep, new job. Let me bring you up to speed on my recent attempts at ‘gainful’ employment: The job I previously had driving to and fro wasn’t really bad at all, apart from the fact that the hours were virtually non-existent. It was an on-call kind of thing, and during that time of year, there wasn’t a hell of assignments available – more often than not, it was a case of there being more drivers than tasks available. Whilst at work one day in early October, my dispatcher called me over to the side, saying ‘Just so you know, if you want to look around for another job, you can, cos we’re really not going to have a lot of work until the beginning of the year’. At first, I thought it was just me he didn’t have any work for, but as it turns out, it was across the board. My friend/coworker Dave Z was firing off resumes left and right as well, as the hours were really scarce. One day I came in, worked about an hour, sat round in the dispatcher’s office for another 45 minutes waiting for a new assignment, was told there wasn’t anything left for that day, and was sent home. Now, a two-hour workday would be feckin’ ace if it were a normal job, wherein you’d be paid for eight, but we were paid by the hours we actually worked. WOO HOO.

So! I did a bit of job-hunting, and interviewed at some place that needed outgoing callers in the daytime. They called me back a couple of days later; they told me that I was hired, but they’d let me know in a week what day to come in, as they were in the midst of getting a project from a new client. So a week went by, and I was in relatively high spirits. The bloke who interviewed me called me back while I was in line buying my laptop, saying ‘Well, the hours for the job have changed, as the new client wants us to call some days in the evening’.
‘What days?’ I asked.
‘Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday’, he replied. ‘I remember that you said you have classes, but I don’t remember what days..’
‘Monday and Tuesday eve’, I replied, cutting him off. As you suspect, I was rather pissed off at that point, especially since I had just quit my driving job the day before. He hemmed and hawed, telling me that they’d keep my name on the list, and I hung up on him.

Thankfully, two weeks ago, I was graced with an interview and a callback for my new job, which I’ve just come home from. It’s *sigh* fundraising via telephone again, but this is something that’ll be able to put fuel in my tank until I graduate. Mon – Fri, 10am to 2pm, at $8 per hour, plus commission when I get succesful sales. Err, I mean donations. It doesn’t sound like much, but 20 hours a week is a hell of a lot better than six to eight hours a month.
The office contains about 40 people, and since it’s in Southfield (a nice 15 minute drive from mine), 95% of the workers are playas and would-be gangstas. So of course I’ll fit in even less there than I usually do most places. *shrug* Our paid orientation was four hours, and it’s about as straightforward as you can get. Like I’d said, it’s something to put fuel in my tank.. It’ll be nice not being absolutely broke!

Ooh, look at what comes out at BestBuy tomorrow!

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Annoyed beyond reason and politeness

typed for your pleasure on 27 October 2005, at 2.15 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Bop scotch’ by Stereolab

AN OPEN LETTER TO MICRO$OFT

Dearest shitwicks,

I say this in all honesty, and without the slightest trace of insincerity: the lot of you need to choke down a cock, after which, you should crawl into ditches by the side of the road, and die. Tell me; if I’ve already bought a brand-new computer from a chain store that’s bundled with MS Windows, why in burning fuck does it not come with MS Office built into it? For free? I’m not talking about the ‘trial’ version, which is only good for 50 uses, I’m talking about full-usage Word, Access, Excel and PowerPoint being installed on the computer I just paid $1000 for. You know damn well people need Word at home, at the very least, and if you’re running any sort of business, I suppose the other three are useful as well. Once my classes are complete, I’ll probably never use Excel or Access ever in my life — much like algebra — but that’s irrelevant. Why are these not standard-issue programmes?

I was over at BestBuy this morning, checking on the prices for MS Office 2003 Student/Teacher Edition, as I was told by a classmate that it was only fifty bucks. Well, this just confirms that shouldn’t listen to my classmates at all, as she neglected to add a one in front of that fifty. And naturally, I was at the store with only $55. Apart from the fact that the basic, i.e. Student/Teacher version should already be in all store-bought PCs that run Windows — that is to say, all of them — if you insist on selling it separately, you really need to lower your goddamn prices. Christ in shitty knickers, $150?? For the ‘incomplete’ version?? So what all does the Professional version do that the cheaper version not do? I mean, if the Professional version is four hundred fucking dollars, there had better be a blowjob that ranks as a profound spiritual experience. Actually there should be several of them, and it doesn’t count if Bill Gate$ face is involved.

There is no reason why MS Office isn’t standard issue on PCs. There is no reason, if it’s not bundled with a computer, why it should be so horrifically expensive. No reason on earth. Bill Gate$, you need to stop being a cumguzzling profit whore for once in your life, and do what I tell you to do, you weedy little shit. Failing that, your dramatic and humourous self-immolation would be the only other thing I’d want from you.

And your money. That goes without saying.

Love,
Davecat

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Operation: Mapleleaf (2005 edition)

typed for your pleasure on 24 October 2005, at 2.50 am

Sdtrk: ‘Nonstop to Tokyo’ by Pizzicato five

Saturday was fat-packed full of Excitement and Adventure, as instead of getting together round at either Derek or Jeff’s in the evening as per usual, we decided to make a day trip to Toronto, as we try to go at least once a year, and we missed out last year. Plus, we wanted to go before it got unspeakably cold, and before having a passport was absolutely necessary. Those of us living in Southeast Michigan are lucky, cos we can visit a whole other country after simply crossing a bridge or a tunnel; however starting next year, foreign visitors will be required to have a passport to visit Canada from Detroit, for the first time since the bridges and tunnel were built. Naturally, you can chalk that nonsense up to homeland ‘security’.
Aaanyway, it was to be a proper group outing, involving Jeff, Derek, Mike, Tim, Marika, and myself. Tim was the first to cancel, as he claimed financial embarrassment; plus he had to do something with his aunt on the week-end. Mike pulled out on Friday eve, due to some loan shark issues or some such. Since we were only going to be there for the day, none of us were carrying a lot of dosh; out of all four of us, I think I had the most, at $125. So, with our reduced numbers, Derek decided to stuff us all in his Cavalier as opposed to the van, as the mileage would be significantly better.

Having awakened at an unspeakable 4am Saturday morn, I left my house at 5.15 to obtain Mari, and she and I got round to Derek’s at maybe 10 after 6. Jeff was already there, polishing off his Egg McMuffin. We took off at about 7am, stopped at an ATM, bought fuel, drinkies and snacks, and were off in due course to the Blue Water Bridge.
Now, taking the Ambassador Bridge or the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel is fine if you’re only going to Windsor, but the Blue Water Bridge is much better for Toronto journeys, as it cuts the five hour drive time down by about an hour, as you don’t have to navigate through Windsor. However, we’ve noticed on our trips up there, that they’re a little bit more likely to stop you at the border, cos there’s less traffic, and the guards therefore have more time to inspect cars. So we were pulled over! Of course, adding to the suspense is that, apart from Jeff, none of us had proper ID — drivers’ licenses just barely count, and Social security cards aren’t valid. Don’t even bother with a school ID, and, as you well suspect, those ExpressPay cards they give you at Kinko’s aren’t an option, either. Whilst they disassembled Derek’s Cavalier, we had to go inside and present ourselves to an official over at the Immigration booth. After we proved that we were indeed on a peaceful mission, they let us go on our way; the whole process taking about 20 minutes. It was inconvenient, to be sure, but as we didn’t have to submit to a forcible cavity search, we left pretty satisfied.

Fueled by high spirits and various songs by Pizzicato five, the Space channel 5 sdtrks, and that song by Black eyed peas where the lass is singing about her ‘lovely lady lumps’ — a song so stupid, it’s funny, we all agreed — Derek drove, Jeff belched profusely, Mari knitted, and I passed out. I woke up round 10.30ish, when we had made it into Toronto airspace proper, and it was raining. As I’d brought Clicky Mk II, I had intended to take photos of the city from the view of the motorway, but it was too windy and cold (it was in the low 40s) to roll down the window, and with four people occupying a small car, the windows were perenially fogged up. C’est la vie..
After barely successfully navigating our way down several one-way streets, we pulled into an underground car park near City Hall. Fab Thing About Toronto, No.342783: You know how in ordinary car parks you have to remember ‘Red F’ or ‘Blue 6’, so you have an inkling as to where your vehicle is at? This being Canada, the floors were identified by various Canadian-related animals, such as ‘Squirrel’, or ‘Moose’, or ‘Rabbit’, as seen here.


Left, a 2D silhouette of a bunny; right, Mari

Very nice!

We hit Eaton centre first, to get out of the fucking rain (Normally, I don’t mind the rain, as you well know, but when the wind is actually flipping your brolly inside out, then it’s a problem) and to have lunch. We hit Sushi-Q, which was both good and bad — Good, cos I was hoping it was still there from the last time we visited T.O, but Bad, cos I had forgotten how small the portions were. Should’ve expected as much; after all, it’s a sushi stand in a mall, not an actual restaurant.. After scarfing the lot, we stopped round to Indigo, a book chain store akin to Borders, where Mari and I unsuccessfully tried to locate a copy of ‘Still lovers‘ (out of stock, the bastards), but I did see a copy of ‘The Stanley Kubrick Archives‘ by Taschen. It even comes with a Cd of an interview from the Sixties with Kubrick, as well as an actual 12-frame strip of film from ‘2001: A space odyssey’! Who wants to give me $200 USD to pick up a copy? You? Good!

Shortly after that, we made our way outside, where it was still pissing down. We’d noticed a lot of commotion towards the Sears side of Eaton centre, where various people were running — literally running — with tags of a sort stuck somewhere on their clothes, and more often than not, holding a piece of paper. As we left Eaton centre, we encountered more and more of them as we walked toward Chinatown. Over the course of observing several small groups of these people, we overheard a couple of conversations they were having over their cellphones; it was a good ol’ fashioned scavenger hunt. Hm! Although finding anything in a city that vast would be an epic undertaking, without question..
Chinatown was ace, as it always is. We hit a couple of bootleg backup DVD shops, and variety shops — there were more than a few places that had cheongsams on offer that would’ve looked delicious on Sweetie, but I passed — and eventually, we hit the creepy Chinese mall (Chinatown Centre) on Spadina, which is just an experience in itself. You kinda get the impression that the place was bought at a discount. The floors are always covered with leaves, the elevators sometimes work, the escalators don’t work at all, but it’s ace regardless. Plus, it’s got Kikiwai!

From there, we made our way back to Yonge (still raining, although not as windy), hitting Silver snail in the process, and then spending time in Sam the Record Man. Looking round as we walked, you couldn’t help but notice how much construction was taking place. Lofts. EVERYWHERE. Giant outdoor television screens. EVERYWHERE. New shops and restaurants. EVERWHERE. Having grown up in Detroit, one of the qualities that draws me to T.O is that it’s an actual, functioning city, with people, and transportation, and hundreds of places to visit and things to see. There was a metric ton of people making their way up and down the sidewalks, despite the inclement weather. Not only is it a living city, but it’s a friendly city, which amazes me no end. I mean, I don’t see myself suddenly becoming a people person upon moving there, but I’m sure my interactions will be, by and large, a lot more pleasant. I’ve been to Toronto probably about twenty times, and it’s always been like that. As I mused aloud to Mari, everytime I go up there I see something new, even in the places I’ve visited before, and I love that. And this is coming from someone who swears by consistency.

As we were running out of time — we wanted to leave Toronto by 8pm, plus, the walking was knackering us — we made our way back to the food court of Eaton centre for dinner, made a quick stop to Shoppers drug mart, where I acquired my requisite chip booty (four bags of Miss Vickie’s Original recipe, two bags of Ruffles All dressed), and we headed back to the car park, but not before getting one more decent photo in. An hour after leaving the city limits, driving through rain mixed with snow (!), I fell asleep again. All told, we really didn’t spend a lot of money, which I suppose is good. Jeff purchased the latest Goldfrapp Cd that’s not yet available in the States, I believe Derek bought a couple of DVDs, a wooden sake set, and a geomancy mirror, and Mari bought some Tylenol. Naturally, we had to let the border guard on the US side know that I bought some chips. Don’t you feel safer?

All in all, a lovely trip, weather and time restraints aside.


Yonge st, from the second floor of Sam the Record Man

Y’know, it’s all I can do to not drop dramatically to my knees and kiss the pavement every single time we visit Toronto

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Off my chest, onto your monitor

typed for your pleasure on 18 October 2005, at 3.41 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Silver line’ by Birdie

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t go round attacking or sniping at people left and right in ‘real-life’ situations, as not only do I have that much time on my hands, but most people really aren’t worth the effort. But I felt it necessary that I wrote this post, much in the same way that the body rids itself of toxins by vomiting. So at this point, you should probably step back a couple of feet, so you don’t get any on ya.

At this point, I’m certain that over the course of the past week or so, you’ve seen various posts all round the World Wide Wet dealing with the Salon.com article. If not, merely fire up Technorati, and search for any conjunction of the words ‘Davecat’, ‘Sidore’, ‘iDollator’, or ‘creepy’, and you’ll have several sites to choose from. Many of those posts are less than charitable, and all of those happen to be written by closed-minded arseholes.
Now, the curious thing about seeing these excoriating posts, is that 95% of them are written by politically-motivated individuals. When I say that, I mean that a lot of these blogs are normally filled with content dealing with social issues, impeaching Dubya, etc etc. That, in and of itself, is odd enough, as what does a Doll and her husband have to do with a blog of that nature? But the really strange thing is, most of these politically-motivated bloggers? They’re liberals. Or, at least, so-called liberals. You would think that a person who stands for racial equality, the elimination of societal classes, gay and lesbian rights, etc etc, would be pro-Synthetik; or, at the very least, not entirely against the idea.

Over at pandagon, where they practically had me on the gallows, it seemed that a prerequisite of writing a response that would gain you their favour was to call me a misogynist. For those of you who don’t want to wade through the 400+ responses to the post concerning Meghan’s article, basically, I am a creep/loser/sexist/misogynist/tool of the patriarchy (choose one) because not only do I own a RealDoll, but I’ve given her a personality. Giving her a personality, or even referring to Shi-chan as ‘her’ rather than ‘it’, means that I hate women, but since I’m a loser, I still want sex, but having my ‘overpriced fucktoy’ means that I don’t have to deal with a ‘real’ woman’s opinions, likes, dislikes, etc. So obviously that makes me a creep/loser/sexist/misogynist/tool of the patriarchy (choose one)! It’s that simple!
There’s oh so many problems with that school of thought. So very many.

+ I wrote two responses on the pandagon post; in the first one, I’d said

So I would assume that no-one here has ever been rejected in their advances towards a partner? I assume every single one of you has been completely and utterly successful with their dating experiences? Moreover, the person you’re with is an absolute flawless joy to be around, physically, emotionally, and mentally? Well, congratulations to the lot of you! You’re extraordinarily lucky, each and every one of you. Really, I mean that.

It really doesn’t occur to a lot of iDollator critics that quite a few owners have their Dolls because they’re sick of being rejected, due to failing to meet the standards of whatever person they’re trying to romantically impress. After a few couple of times of falling off the romance horse, some people, like me, say ‘this really isn’t fucking worth it’, and stop. Our society places great pressure on people to get together and be in a relationship, but it requires a lot of time and energy that a lot of individuals don’t have, so they ‘settle’ for someone, and either compromise parts of themselves in the process, or consciously/subconciously try to change their partner. And then, there are times when the person you’ve linked up with turns out to be a vicious liar, as KrazyQ pointed out. The pandagon fuckwits have no idea what makes an iDollator become an iDollator, as there’s no one reason. In my case, one of the foremost reasons is that I was tired of being stabbed in the back by people I placed too much trust in.

+ Which leads up to a comment I’d made in my second post, which turned into some seriously miscontrued bullshit:

I’d rather be in a relationship with a Doll, rather than be in one with a real woman who’s possibly lying to meet her own ends. I’m sure that’s got the feminists here chomping at the bit, but as I’d said, I’m not misogynist; I just don’t like liars, especially when love is involved. Being with a Doll eliminates that possibility.

Of course, they read that as ‘Davecat thinks all women are liars’. Frankly, I think 99% of the population, male or female, are liars, with a few notable exceptions. I was saying that it concerns me more that a) the few dating experiences I’ve had were with a couple of liars, most notably my interactions with the Slag, and b) it’s going to affect me more if a woman that I’m interested in is lying, cos I don’t date men. But being psychotic, they added 2 with 2 and arrived at 22.

+ I’m sorry, but if you are taking a paragraph, reducing it to its component sentences, and then chopping the sentences up to infinitesmally small thoughts that you don’t even fully comprehend, as you’re making presumptions to begin with, that is also a problem. People, especially high-minded individuals who consider themselves socially aware intellectuals, should know that sometimes the context of printed articles gets distorted. I have absolutely no problem whatsoever with Meghan’s article — it’s brilliantly composed, and I’m glad it was written — but part of the problem with the pandagon shits, and really, the other blogs ragging on me, is that the Salon.com edit is inferior to the original version. But everyone’s seen the Salon.com version, and as Salon doesn’t mention the existence of the original story, that’s all these people have to go on. Not only that, but as far as pandagon, most people didn’t read past the first page of the story, and quite a few people didn’t read it at all.

+ Brief thing: it’s great how they have a problem with me referring to Shi-chan as ‘she’ and not ‘it’. Is it just me, or wouldn’t referring to a female-shaped object that I’m intimate with as an ‘it’ be more offensive and sexist and dehumanising, than if I didn’t?
To the uninitiated, seeing the elaborate personality and backstory I’ve created for Sidore might seem weird at best, and creepy at worst. To be an iDollator, you do have to have your tongue planted in your cheek. Dolls are silicone receptacles that the more inventive of us choose to use as physical bodies for personalities. It’s called having fun. Yes, Sidore is not a ‘real person’; yes, she is a Doll, but giving her a personality is more of a ‘human’ thing to do, rather than seeing an expensive, beautifully-sculpted work of art as just a ‘fucktoy’.

+ Funny thing: In a phone conversation this Sunday past, Meghan pointed out that both of us had posted, and yet no-one actually asked us anything. Think about that. Both the writer and one of the main subjects of the story were there, and yet no-one actually asked us anything. Well, I take that back; one or two people asked Meghan a question, but all I received were sarky comments. That just solidifies everything as far as the mentality of people like that; the whole ‘it’s wrong because it’s wrong’, or ‘it’s wrong because I said so’, or ‘it’s wrong because it’s a lot easier for me to insult someone than to open my tiny fucking mind to questions that might shatter my fragile ideals’. It’s ironic and a little unsettling to me because those people are ‘liberals’. They’re theoretically supposed to be on my side.
Really, normal feminists I have nothing wrong with. I honestly believe that a lot of the reasons why society is as bollocked up as it is is because there’s been a male stranglehold on it for hundreds of years. But you’re a radical feminist, you say? O! You’re fucked up. You’re a bitter, scowling, sexually frustrated, morally confused, fucked up person. You are no better than the right-wing Republicans which you loathe, you are simply the opposite side of the coin. It’s like SafeT said, people like that drain any and all credibility from normal feminists and their sympathisers.

+ And as I, and a couple of other posters had attempted to convey (surprisingly, there were a couple of people on my side. Actually, it was more like Meghan, and a friend of hers were defending me there, and there were two or three people who were leaning towards my side): why is it such a monumental issue that some people have a Synthetik companion to begin with? Female detractors will say ‘You’re creepy, and I wouldn’t want anything to do with you’. To a Doll husband, not only is that not in any way a loss, but anybody who would say anything like that is the kind of individual that we would take pains to avoid — romantically, in a day-to-day context, whatever. It’s a sign of over-inflated self-importance that a person would say something like that, as well as a striking indicator of closed-mindedness. Personally speaking, the more closed-minded you are, the less I’m going to think of you.

At this point, I think that pretty much covers the lot. ‘Your friends don’t need an explanation, and your enemies won’t believe you anyway.’ But I do want to leave you with a link to a very beautiful post, written by one of my dearest friends, Penda. You know, my closest female friend that I’ve known for 25 years, which is quite remarkable for a misogynist like myself. With her personal perspective, she brings across in her eloquent way a more condensed version of what I’ve just written here. So go read that instead. 🙂

All done!

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Oh, (the) humanity

typed for your pleasure on 26 August 2005, at 12.00 pm

Sdtrk: ‘At night’ by the Cure

This morning, I was awakened by my bloody phone ringing at sometime after 8.30am. I lurched out of bed, saw it was a number that I didn’t recognise, and switched the ringer off. Roughly three minutes later, I hear the beep that indicates that someone’s left a message, and I’m thinking, ‘who in fuck’s left me a three minute message??’ So I got out of bed again in order to check who it was, and it turned out to be D_____, a lass that was the receptionist at my last job who I was half-heartedly attempting to chat up. She was going on at length about how she’s just moved her computer into her new place with her current boyfriend, and they got into it this morning, as he had checked her AOL Inbox, and discovered, to his chagrin, several names of males that were not his own. Yeah, he’s one of those lovely, aggressively insecure types of blokes — he’s a cop, which pretty much says it all right there. D_____ had left a message wanting to know how exactly she could make sure she got rid of, or at least hide, any and all Emails from her other guy friends that she’d received, as well as pictures; as one time, I had gotten round to her old place and taken photos of her feet — yes, I’m a foot fetishist, we’ve covered this — and Emailed them back to her. He had asked who took them, and D_____ panicked and said some coworker had taken them, and when I rung her back at work, she said that he was probably going through her AOL account as we spoke. In short, the Gestapo was paying her a visit, and she wanted to know how best to effectively hide the Jews in her cupboards. I honestly don’t know how that analogy came about, but it’s making me giggle.

Basically, I’m sat here shaking my head. Why is it that people get into relationships, and knowingly stay in them, with fuckwits? I’m telling her, ‘well, D_____, if he won’t let you send and receive Emails from any one of your male friends, or he won’t let you give out your cellphone number to any one of your male friends, or if he won’t let you hang out with your male friends — in many cases, blokes you’ve known before you even met your prick of a boyfriend — then maaaybe that’s not the sort of relationship you want to be in?’ She’s saying that the arguments with him are stressing her out, which was audibly apparent in speaking with her the last couple of times after I was fired. I suggested that I take her out to dinner for a stress-free evening, but she claimed it would be difficult, if not impossible, to get away for any length of time, as she heads straight from work to pick her boyfriend’s son up from school, whereupon she heads back to her place and spends the rest of the eve with her prick of a boyfriend. D_____ apparently can’t leave her relationship, cos from what I see, she’s like thousands upon thousands of people who have a driving need to be with someone — anyone — even if that person has a couple of faults, such as being a suspicious little shit.

Now, I speak with some experience, as to some extent, that’s the way things were with my and my former housemate, the Slag. I was going to my job, being depressed there, coming home, having to drive her silly arse out to her stripper job or whatever cos she couldn’t drive, then hours later, having to get out of bed and leave a sound sleep behind in order to pick her up from said job, and then she would invariably chew me out because of something I did or didn’t do, either in real life, or solely in her deranged hallucinatory mind. I’m a person who believes that a home should not be a stressful place; it should be someplace where you can get away from virtually everything. After speaking to all manner of cunts from various states on the phone for seven hours, home should be a place where I really shouldn’t have to speak to anyone, if I choose not to. So one day, after of culmination of events that I’ll have to explain at a later date (that’s for the rest of the ‘I am not making this up‘ series, which I swear I’ll finish one day), I simply packed up my belongings and left. Good job on that as well, as it’s done loads for my sanity and well-being.
That caustic series of months where I lived with that so-called person pretty much solidified the fact that I can’t live with anyone. If they’re a friend before I lived with them, they turn into something entirely and negatively Other. Living by oneself, as I’ve said before, allows a person to actually develop their interests in their own time. It permits them to relax, and not be ‘on’ all the time. Most importantly, it allows them to see and do what they want, with whom they want, without having to field awkward and unnecessary questions from their roommate or partner. That’s one of the many reasons that I enjoy the company of my RealDoll Sidore. Rampant iDollatry aside, a Doll doesn’t care if you’ve had partners in the past, a Doll doesn’t care if you come home four hours later than you said you would, etc etc. It’s my goal to eliminate as much stress from my life as I possibly can, and being in the sort of relationship I’m currently in works toward that goal.

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m writing this in the spirit of ‘ha ha, I’m better off than you are’, cos I’m not. I just completely and utterly fail to understand why people will put up with that sort of behaviour. It could be argued that there are a few advantages being in one-half of a relationship — doubled income; constant, relentless, non-stop companionship — but if you have to compromise your personal freedoms, then none of it’s worth it. Society dictates that to be ‘successful’ and ‘happy’, you should be in a traditional relationship, but the way I see it, just because society says it’s a good idea, then it most likely isn’t

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Jeeves, fetch me my rocket launcher

typed for your pleasure on 20 August 2005, at 5.44 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Hoffmann’ by Asja auf Capri

At this very moment in writing, it’s raining outside, which is a fact that pleases me to no end. I mean, I normally prefer the skies to be cloudy and grey, but the fact that it’s doing it right now today is making me giggle like a schoolgirl. Why, you ask? This would be the week-end of the non-event known to people in the Southeastern Michigan area as the Woodward Dream Cruise.

The Woodward Dream cruise, if you’re lucky enough to not be familiar with it, is basically an excuse for all the gearheads and nostalgia freaks in the state (as well as a couple from neighbouring states) to cruise up and down Woodward, which is the main drag of the Tri-county area, as well as the dividing line between the west side and the east side. It’s ostensibly a sad reenactment of the ‘good ol’ days’ of the Fifties and Sixties, when Detroit had both a functioning auto industry and places worth visiting, and young people would drive aimlessly up and down Woodward in their oversized automobiles. Now, once a year for the past.. however many years.. all those individuals who grew up during those years that have reconditioned ‘classic’ cars spend an entire week-end, driving aimlessly up and down Woodward, slowing traffic down, and being a general nuisance.

On the one hand, people who support the Dream cruise say that not only is it fun, but it brings business to the shops in the area, the area being from 8 mile, to several miles north to Birmingham. It’s a chance to get that ’57 Chevy convertible that you’ve been wiping with a cloth diaper once a week for twelve months out of the garage and back onto the road where it belongs, and hang out with other like-minded car enthusaists, and their accompanying beer bellies. On the other hand, it’s a fucking annoyance, especially to those who live around Woodward, or use it habitually. You’ve got very loud, large, and ugly cars taking up three out of four lanes, and driving at an average speed of 20 – 25 mph. Quite a few business owners hate the Dream cruise cos it prevents customers from patronising their stores, cos people want to do what they can to avoid the traffic slowdown, and if it means not going anywhere near Woodward, then so be it. My friend Jeff and his wife regularly either leave town that week-end, or spend the majority of Saturday in cities that are far away from the cruise.

Now, not only do you have to deal with the hundreds of gobshites with their aircraft carriers on wheels, but then there’s the crowds of lookie-loos that line Woodward, in order to gawk at the cars. That aspect gets so ridiculous, that people set up lawn chairs a couple of days in advance. It’s fantastic to see these people have no other excitement or meaning in their lives, except to sit on the side of a fucking major thoroughfare for the purpose of watching loud cars and their equally loud owners, days before the actual event is underway.
I’d also like to take a moment to mention that right now in Michigan, a single gallon of regular gas is almost $2.80. Can you see why the Dream cruise makes less sense with each passing sentence?

It can be argued that I’m a wee bit biased. For one, I don’t really like American cars, as you may have gathered, especially ones built during the Fifties and Sixties, as I find them to be too noisy, and graceless in design. Plus I live about a mile away from Woodward — although I reside just south of the ‘starting point’ of the Dream cruise, I still have to fight my way through traffic if I want to go anywhere this eve. However, I hope to be attending the Battle of the Brits auto show this September. The main differences between that and the Dream cruise are that 1) the vehicles are better (‘British Made by British Labour’) and 2) the cars are not obstructing traffic on the goddamned road. The BotB takes place at an open-air park, where all the cars and motorcycles are parked on the lawn, and people walk amongst them and whatnot. Rather nice!

Right now, the rain has stopped. But it rained earlier this morn and stopped, so I’m hoping that it fires up again, and pisses all over the Dream cruise parade. Sorry, convertible owners! You’re probably gonna need more diapers

Random similar posts, for more timewasting:

End of an era on November 30th, 2005

I am a bona fide MARKETING NIGHTMARE! on July 13th, 2025

Posted in Essays, Misanthropy | 6 comments »


At the bedside of Mistress English Language, holding her hand as she wastes away

typed for your pleasure on 7 August 2005, at 3.03 pm

Sdtrk: ‘Little man, what now?’ by Morrissey

So recently I was ‘surfing’ the ‘Internets’, doing some research regarding a Japanese television show that Derek and I viewed a week or so ago, called ‘Densha otoko’ (‘The Train man’). What the show’s about is irrelevant to this post, but you can learn about it here. Needless to say, we got a big kick out of it, so Derek is going to download the rest of the series as the fansubbers release them. At any rate, in scanning various websites, I read an article from a 2004 issue of the Japan Times with a paragraph that really stood out:

[I am from the] analog generation, growing up only with television and land-line phones. In fact, an article in Spa (Sept. 7) informs us of digital gaps even between those in their 20s. Twenty-eight-year-olds are the pocket-paper generation; they tend to write long, letter-style e-mails. Twenty-four-year-olds were raised on cell phones (but during the transition period to broadband Net access), while 20-year-olds have only known fixed-fee, broadband access to the Net.

For the past couple of months I’ve been lamenting to mates about how I really don’t write Emails to people as much as I used to, cos I tend to write these rather long, detail-heavy affairs that take up quite a bit of time, so I urge them to read ‘Shouting etc etc’, and I try to ring them on week-ends, when my minutes are free. But I find it rather scary that there will be a whole generation of people who can’t form proper Emails or letters, let alone paragraphs, without ‘omg hi 2 u’ or some variant being in there somewhere, or worse. It’s not so much a feeling of ‘these consarned kids with their newfangled cell-u-lar phones,’ but more like, ‘As decades pass, future generations will be less and less capable of being able to write properly’. You know, when you’re in an English writing class, much like I was a couple of semesters ago, and the teacher feels that it’s necessary to point out that when writing papers, emoticons and Internet shorthand are unacceptable, and someone asks why, and you just want to stick your index finger through your eye, and into your brain, and swirl it around, just so you have something less painful to focus on.

I’d mentioned the quoted paragraph to Allison during one of our car rides in between shoots. She remarked that she’d read somewhere of an informal study that basically said that between the advent of Email and the beginning of text messaging, people were beginning to write on a regular basis. Their literacy levels didn’t necessarily go up (I’ve always said that the Internet is the largest bastion of illiterates anywhere — AOL, I’m looking in your direction), but people were actually getting back to writing. Of course, text messaging ruined all that for everyone, and now you have sites that look like this. That sure as fuck isn’t proper English. I’m not even sure it’s proper anything.

Now, as regarding my former style of writing (for examples, check any entry to ‘Shouting etc etc’ prior to Nov 2004), I knew that I wasn’t writing in standard English, and I was perfectly capable of doing so, but I was electing not to as an experiment. A ten-year long experiment, but nevertheless. That was the main reason I stopped it, as people would look at my writing style and say ‘well he says he’s a Grammar Nazi, but look how he writes,’ without knowing why I wrote that way. But I’d be hard-pressed to believe that that lass in the blog linked above has higher aspirations for her fast-and-loose take on English. Maybe she’s got the ESL (English as a Second Language) thing going, or you can chalk it up to ‘youthful rebellion’, but I’d say it’s a combination of the herd mentality and laziness. But that’s just me.

I’m at the point where I’m attempting to phase out Internet shorthand out of my own writing; after that, I’ll work on the emoticons. I do realise that language evolves over time, but that doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily a good idea

Random similar posts, for more timewasting:

Do not disappoint us, Zack Snyder on March 5th, 2009

National Winter Hibernation NOW! / Overdue culling on January 18th, 2009

Posted in Essays, Misanthropy, the Surly Grammarian | 10 comments »


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