June 30, 2003
Excuses...
I'll so offend, to make offence a skill;
Redeeming time when men think least I will.
The above is a favourite quote of a friend of mine. He trots it out whenever anyone starts talking about his "wasted potential." I started thinking about this the other day for no particular reason. The Shakespeare buffs will recognize it from Henry IV part I, when Prince Hal was still a man behaving badly, but with the seeds of his redemption and future greatness already planted.
My friend's redemption (ie. getting off of his ass and actually moving forward with something, anything of note) is nowhere to be seen. Ten years from now, he will still be doing what he's doing now: subsisting and marking time until the day he dies. The above quote is a crutch that doesn't mean anything because my friend has no plan for redemption.
There are no wheels, there is no motion!
- Baboo Bhat, Seinfeld
But this isn't about him. It's about me.
-----
Our doubts are traitors
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt
Years ago I made a mistake. I quit a job, but actually quit a career path. I was making a lot of money, but was bored with the job I was doing, so I quit with the idea of being a broker. I wrote about that in more detail here.
Suffice to say that it was a big fucking mistake. And I've had MANY agonizing moments KICKING myself in the head about the time and money I've lost while trying to switch back onto my former career track.
Time lost bitching.
Time lost moaning.
Time lost whining.
It's done. I've had enough of punishing myself for this. What's needed is a full ejection of all the crap I've been carrying around in my head for almost two years now.
(begin excuses)
- being a broker is tough
- many people aren't suited
- more than half fail. There's no shame
- some people aren't lucky in sales
- The economy is tough
- September fucking eleventh
(end excuses)
Yes, end all the excuses now. Mea culpa, I was a shitty broker. I can't lie worth shit and I can't take a confident position on things I know shit about. I can't tell you what the Fed will do with any certainty and I couldn't parrot the company line that Bombardier was a good fucking investment in the fall of 2001 JUST BECAUSE THEY SAID SO
It was my fault that I buggered up my career with an ill-timed, ill-executed, ill-thought out career change. I owe an apology to myself which I never gave, but will now.
From me to me:
I'm sorry. It's over now and you can move on. I can't promise I won't have yet another stupid idea that could bugger up your career, but I apologize for doing this to you and making you agonize over the total wrong-ness of the decisions you made. Now go out there and move forward and we don't ever need to think about this again, lesson-fucking-learned.
Forgiven?
June 27, 2003
Wednesday Dinner chat
The scene: The kitchen. Centre of the Kraut household. It's just after dinner and Rue is perusing the 'net while princess Boo-Boo the first is busy scribbling with her crayons in her high-chair. Ray (the Kraut) is holding a crying 3-week old Brenna as they all sit around the too-small kitchen table...
Ray (holding Brenna): ya know, if I had tits I could help with her a lot more...
Rue (smiles): If you had tits a lot more of your guy friends would show up more often.
Ray: If I was a woman, we'd be a damn hot lesbian couple...
Rue: If you were a woman we could pick up ANYBODY by offering a threesome!
Ray: Hmmmmmm...
Rue: Hmmmmmm...
Brenna: Waaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!
June 25, 2003
I was just talking about this earlier!
from the IMDB:
Now if this were thirty years ago and he were snubbing the franchise that Sean Connery built I would say that Mr. Owen's getting a bit too big for his britches...but, in retrospect, the Bond franchise is not what it once was.
After a good start to the Brosnan era with Goldeneye (one of my favourites of "new-era" Bond. Sean Bean uber-cool as the villian and Famke Jannsen killing guys with her thighs; HER THIGHS!) the last ones have been rather stupid (Denise Richards as a nukular scientist for crying out loud!) and I haven't even bothered to go to the theatres for the last two outings: I even passed it by at the rental counter, opting for The Transporter instead...
Come to think of it. Why are there more Bond movies? Aside from the commercial product placement opportunities hasn't every possible permutation of the Bond film been made by now?
I think for me the franchise ended as soon as the super-ENGLISH spy began driving a German car and drinking pseudo-vodka in his martinis...
June 24, 2003
But where do all the calculators go?
It appears that my Palm Vx may be headed to silicon heaven (no that has nothing to do with proximity to Pamela Anderson!) as it will not power up despite repeated attempts.
For you Red Dwarf fans out there...
Kryten: Oh, it's not the end for me, sir, it's just the beginning. I have served my human masters, now I can look forward to my reward in silicon heaven.
Lister: [Stunned pause.] Silicon WHAT?
Kryten: Surely you've heard of silicon heaven?
Lister: Has it got anything to do with being stuck opposite Bridgette Nielsen in a packed lift?
Kryten: It's the electronic afterlife! It's the gathering place for the souls of all electonic equipment. Robots, calculators, toasters, hairdryers, it's our final resting place.
Lister: I don't mean to say anything out of place here, Kryten, but that is completely whacko Jacko. There is no such thing as 'Silicon Heaven'.
Kryten: Then where do all the calculators go?
Lister: They don't go anywhere! They just die.
Kryten: Surely you believe that God is in all things? Aren't you a pantheist?
Lister: Yeah, but I just don't think it applies to kitchen utensils. I'm not a FRYING pantheist! Machines do not have souls. Computers and calculators do not have an afterlife. You don't get hairdryers with tiny little wings, sitting on clouds and playing harps!
I was about to go on about whether we control our devices or whether our devices control us (I freak out in the morning if I can't find my Nokia cell phone and my Palm Vx. I've actually left my glasses behind by mistake and not noticed, but have turned around and gone home to retrieve my handy Palm Vx and been late for work...) but find myself saddened that my little buddy's not powering up...
Excuse me for a minute... [sobs]
June 23, 2003
Elemental, Dear Watson
Arsenic! You're one of those "toxic"
people Oprah and Dr. Phil warn us about. You
lie, cheat, and steal your way to the top with
no remorse. You like to watch people fight, and
will get people to do it in a pinch if no one's
fighting already. Unlike those uncouth
Plutoniums, you don't need to break the law
when dealing with enemies; that's what gossip
and blackmail's for! You'd even steal from your
momma! You bastard!
What Element (heh, heh...) Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
Gossip and Blackmail! The rapier and main-gauche of today's society...
Buwahahahaha!!!
via the Flea
Is there such a thing as Blog-narcissism?
I find myself gazing at my blog full of wonder, thinking what if I changed that greenish background to be slightly more yellow? What about my font? Is it cool enough for me?
And I won't tell you how many different title graphics I've cycled through in the last five days.
And the funny thing is that all of this decorating has come at the expense of any good entries that I might've put out in the time it took me to figure out the most rudimentary Photoshop commands...
Style over substance indeed! Oh well, back to looking for things that piss me off...
June 20, 2003
Ordered my BMW Films DVD!
Ever see the short films at www.BMWfilms.com?
Well the general idea is that Clive Owen (who IMHO should replace Brosnan as Bond) takes on different jobs as a driver and shows off the capabilities of several shiny new BMW's while fighting the good fight in each episode. I've seen these films (they're available for download at the site) several times and have always been impressed by the quality of each short.
BMW's done a smart thing and have put all the films together on a DVD which I just ordered. I WANT to see these films on my Sony Vega! The only thing I was charged was $7.75 for shipping and handling. A Great Deal for great films!
A lot better than the so-called "action" movies being put out these days...
June 19, 2003
Anticipation
I remember looking forward to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and being disappointed when I finally saw it. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery had played on video every sunday morning at our apartment (when the wife wasn't the wife, just the live-in girlfriend that fed me...) and stayed fresh a LONG time...The second movie felt forced and didn't have the same heart as the first one. It seemed to be a collection of one-off gags that never seemed to gel.
I left the theatre feeling cheated somehow.
I remember downloading the trailer to Phantom Menace, thinking that there was NO WAY this movie could fail: Liam Neeson, Ewan MacGregor, AND Natalie Portman? This was going to be fan-friggin'-tastic!
I guess that I side with the majority in that I was underwhelmed by this movie. It wasn't just Jar-Jar Binks. He was just a symptom of the problem. The movie was cold and digital, whereas Star Wars was all action, adventure and really wild things. It was bright and inviting...
I left the theatre feeling disappointed. As I did three years later after viewing Attack of the Clones...
I started to doubt that ANY movie could live up to my expectations...
-----
But then I remembered the movies that left me grinning from ear to ear: Pulp Fiction, The Crying Game, L.A Confidential, Memento. These were all movies that I went into knowing absolutely nothing about - and came out totally and completely satisfied...
More recently I saw Frailty and was shocked that this movie wasn't a runaway hit. Maybe because it had God in it...The Ten Commandments had God starring in it a generation ago and he was a big draw - like Ahhh-nold Schwarzenegger he seems to be fading as the years march by. But Frailty should've done better than it did.
Same thing with Fight Club: "Oh that boxing movie?" said one of my co-workers. Marketed totally wrong. Delivered a TOTALLY different experience than I was expecting...And satisfied me right to the end.
Another movie that was hyped to death and that I finally got a chance to watch was Iris. Yes Kate Winslett looks good naked, yes Alzheimer's is a tragic disease, but the movie really didn't make me believe that Iris Murdoch was any more special than anyone else that's cut down by a debilitating disease. Just because everyone in the movie thinks and says that Iris is so brilliant doesn't really convince me of the fact. Truth be told I am quite ignorant of Iris Murdoch's writings: but I shouldn't have to carry her biography in my head before I watch a movie in order to "get it" should I? I came out of the movie thinking that young Iris was quite a bitch and that John Bayley was an idiot for latching on to her for so long.
I've seen comments about this movie being the "most touching movie ever." I'd respond that I want my 91 minutes back.
-----
So what's the deal? Again I have to turn to marketing over-exposure. When I was 11 years old, I remember waiting 'til the weekend to watch Sneak Previews with Siskel and Ebert and feeling immensely satisfied seeing a 30-second clip from Raiders of the Lost Ark. There were no trailers, the commercials were short and to the point and left A LOT to the imagination...In other words they hooked me good.
On the flip side I stayed away from Double Jeopardy (even though Ashley Judd is quite scrumptious!) because I watched the trailer in the theatre that basically gave away ALL of the plot!
-----
Why do I care? I'm starting to get that anticipatory tingle again...
It's for a movie called 28 Days Later (no it does not have a trace of Sandra Bullock in it!) and from the small bit I've read I WANT this movie to be good. I really do...It's been a LONG time since I've seen a decent horror movie and I want this one to deliver.
No trailers
No reviews
I'm going nowhere NEAR the website I just pointed out to you.
It may be a bomb, but as long as I know nothing more going in I should be fine...I deserve to see a good movie.
The commercials for Terminator 3 are telling me that Ahhh-nold will disappoint me again...
June 18, 2003
The Flea has moved
Ghost of a Flea has a new home. Go say hello.
Hopefully the archives will move over too!
Yet another site moving onto Moveable Type. 'tis a stampede!
More reasons to go for sushi...
Breast cancer risk nearly halved by frequent miso soup intake
MMMM. Miso Soup.
Sorry. Even that unappetizing description can't knock the remembered smell of good miso soup out of my nose right now...
Yeah...That's right. I'll eat all that miso soup to save my prostate!
There's always some #$@*ing catch isn't there!? I'll just pretend I didn't read that part...
June 16, 2003
Basic Biology lesson needed
Anybody wanna give this fucktard a lesson in basic biology? It's the MAN that determines the sex of the baby by supplying either an X or a Y chromosome. So he's the one shooting 'X's...
Dipshit.
The 27-year-old woman left her home in Saff, a rural town about 25 miles [40 kilometers] south of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, and drowned herself in an irrigation canal three hours after giving birth to her second daughter, police officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Before his wife gave birth, her husband had threatened to kill or divorce her if the couple had any more daughters, police said.
Society in rural Egypt is largely conservative, and many parents often prefer having sons to daughters for cultural and economical reasons.
Divorce is also considered a taboo in such areas. Many women would rather their husband take a second wife than be divorced.
The husband, 38, had been married three times before. In each case, he divorced his wives after they gave birth to girls.
But we can't make fun of disadvantaged idiots in different cultures because the nation-states involved don't want to educate their citizens, can we? If they were educated they might realize what unenlightened assholes live beside them and rule them...
I'll take back any comment about the Middle East if I read that this asshole gets charged with threatening to murder his wife and/or any assault charges. There has to be a reason she was so scared she killed herself, doesn't there?
I feel like starting a religion where we stone the stupid idiots among us, thus improving the gene pool so crap like this stops happening...
June 15, 2003
A different time...
Got an email this morning: 'tis spam, but I thought it amusing and decided to share, as I picked out many of the things that did apply to me.
I doubt if my daughters will have the same experiences...
People over 30 should be dead.
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats,
those of us who were kids in the 40's, 50's,60's,
or even maybe the early 70's probably shouldn't
have survived.
There was nothing to stop us from sticking a
fork in an electrical outlet.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles,
doors or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had
no helmets.
(Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat
belts or air bags.
Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm
day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and not from
a bottle. Horrors!
We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop
with sugar in it, but we were never overweight
because we were always outside playing.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from
one bottle, and no one actually died from this.
We would spend hours building go-carts out of
scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find
out we forgot the brakes. After running into the
bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We would leave home in the morning and play all
day, as long as we were back when the street lights
came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.
No cell phones. Unthinkable!
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64,
X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable,
video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell
phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms.
We had friends! We went outside and found them.
We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball
would really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones
and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these
accidents.
They were accidents. No one was to blame but us.
Remember accidents?
We had fights and punched each other and got
black and blue and learned to get over it.
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls
and ate worms and mud pies, and although we were told it
would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the
worms live inside us forever.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's home and
knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in
and talked to them.
Little League had tryouts and not everyone made
the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with
disappointment.
Some students weren't as smart as others, so
they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the
same grade.
Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason.
Our actions were our own. Consequences were
expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke
a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the
law. Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best
risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors,
ever.
The past 50 years have been an explosion
of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and
responsibility,
and we learned how to deal with it all. And
you're one of them!
Congratulations.
Please pass this on to others who have had the
luck to grow up as kids, before lawyers and government
regulated our lives, for our own good...
Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?
I promise my daughters that I will really try not to begin a sentence with "When I was your age..."
Feeling much older now.
June 13, 2003
Martha, Inc.
Let's start off by saying that I HATE Martha Stewart.
I hate fancy cushions, knick-knacks, doilies, faux-whatever and I hate anything Martha Stewart. I hate people who collect spoons. I hate things that have absolutely no function, yet these things clog up people's kitchens because people are going for a certain "look."
I have steadfastly chosen to ignore her TV shows, magazines, home reno books etc. It's easy. That's what remote controls are for. But when friends of mine spend $800 (apiece!) on chairs for the living room that:
- a. no one's allowed to sit on.
- b. decorate a room that no one uses
I have to restrain myself from laughing uncontrollably...
-----
Me: "$800. They must be pretty comfortable."
Forlorn Friend: "We don't sit on them."
Me: "Then what are they for?"
FF: "They're part of a collection..."
Me: "So I can't sit on them?"
FF: "We'd prefer you don't. Sitting on them creases the fabric."
Me: "So where should we sit?"
FF: "Family room."
Me: "So what's the living room for?"
FF: "Formal occasions."
Me: "How many of those have you had?"
FF: [sigh] "none."
...long pause in the family room...
Me: "So your wife watches Martha Stewart, right?"
FF: "Yeah..."
-----
If I have any "inadequacies" they are not pointed out in comparison to Martha Stewart.
No. My problem with Martha Stewart is the attitude that OTHER people who don't attain this "perfection" are seen as second-rate losers who aren't as "good" as Martha and the women people who follow her "teachings." Her house can be as perfect as it can be, but keep your damn comparisons to yourself...
So I myself had a little chuckle when all this hullaballoo began about insider-trading and ImClone...
But now I find myself in the absolutely WEIRD position of saying that the public crucifixion of one of the most hated women on television has gone too far. She hasn't been found guilty (yet!) and, at worst, this crime would require a few months at "Club Fed" in addition to the big fine that always seems to placate the SEC. (Remember Michael Milken from the 80's? If I remember correctly he was fined $600 million, a record for the time after making billions controlling the junk bond market and spent some time in jail while keeping the majority of the inside deals profit.)
Does this really compare with the crap going on at Enron? Worldcom? AOL Time Warner? Martha, despite her massive ego and sizeable business success is a guppy in the world of fraudulent back room deals.
What is being punished here is not the arrogance of the woman Martha Stewart, but the arrogance of the Martha Stewart fan whose faces we (and I mean the collective "we" here) love rubbing in the stink of this so-called "conspiracy."
I've determined it's not Martha I hate: it's the hubris of her fans, who think that just because their tables have the perfect doilies arranged just so they are somehow better than you and me with our mis-matched plates and non-coordinated drapes...
-----
This every smart child in grade 4 learns quickly on the playground, but this is not the case with Martha. What the writer of the quoted article has failed to realize is that Martha will not pay for her crimes, she will pay because we are sick of her fans and the part that Martha has played in the unendingly sick and unwinnable game of keeping up with the Joneses next door...
June 11, 2003
More Changes
Time for some changes to the ol' blog...
More Rage
More Kraut
Baby stuff is good, but really doesn't generate much rage. Something stupid WILL eventually happen that WILL piss me off. That much is a given...
-----
Like the picture above? My wife snapped the photo of me doing my best William Shatner:
KHAN!!!!
June 07, 2003
Laziness approaches
Quizzes are great when you've got two kids that need to be fed and changed at exactly the same time...More later when my eyes work again...
You are an enigma wraped in a mystery, you blog
for yourself. You have your own reasons for
doing what you do. We are still glad your here!
What kind of blogger am I?
brought to you by Quizilla
June 06, 2003
Hello little Brenna
At 6:30 in the morning yesterday, my second daughter Brenna was born.
I used to have a thing about being the second child. My older brother seemed to get to do lots of things that I never got to do. My parents seemed to take all of my problems in stride, reference was made to my brother all the time when we were discussing MY problems, and my brother seemed to get preferential treatment in ANY negotiations...
Talking to my brother enlightened me to the fact that he considered me a spoiled brat that ALWAYS got my way and that my parents let me get away with first and second degree MURDER that they'd never let him do...
The truth I think is somewhere in between and I think I understand any differencial treatment that may have happened. With our first daughter Brigid I was a nervous wreck the first few days and didn't know it (was she breathing? is she too hot? too cold? she hasn't cried in awhile, does that mean anything?)
With Brenna, many things seem to be going easier...mostly because of a strange sense of deja-vu. With the second child we know what we're doing because we did it with Brigid first...which is probably why my parents always brought my brother's name up with me.
So I think the key will be to go in to parenting the second child, remembering the experience with the first child, but never mentioning where our knowledge comes from...
The other difference is that my daughters are 19 months apart. My brother and I are 16 YEARS apart...
But this will probably all be moot once they are old enough to compare notes and play Mommy and Daddy off of each other.
Two can play at that game. We are ready for them.
June 04, 2003
Organic Experience?
My wife has sworn off of Clairol Herbal Essences...
Has the product deteriorated? No. (Well maybe. I don't use it.)
Does my wife hate Proctor and Gamble, makers of Clairol Herbal Essences because of their "satanic cult" influence? No and that rumour is bullshit.
No, it's the ads.
A total Organic (but we're supposed to think orgasmic, tee hee!) experience...
You've seen all the ads.
- Woman in courtroom coos "I've got the urge!" then three burly losers strut in singing "she's got the urge!" and then proceed to shampoo the hell out of her while she writhes in ecstasy. At the climax (tee hee) of the commercial everyone gets all wet with splashes...
- Woman in airplane goes into the bathroom to wash her hair (?!?) while screaming "YES YES YES!" becoming a single-handed (har har) member of the mile high club through her hair.
- Blonde bitch in run down car tempts slack-jawed grease monkey by going into dirty garage's bathroom (no woman I know would use a garage's washroom) and then proceeds to distract mechanic/troglodyte by washing her hair, again screaming "YES YES YES!" Bitch then proceeds to strut over to gomer/mechanic and whine "Is my car ready yet?"
Did they relocate the clitoris while I wasn't paying attention? "Oh no! Men are paying attention and learning our secret pleasure place! We'd better relocate it to the top of our fuckin' heads!
Neither of us are prudes. But these commercials are stupid and my wife now HATES Clairol with a passion because of how stupid, catty and downright slutty the women act in these ads.
She tolerated the first couple of ads, but they kept coming and there seems to be no end in sight!
Slutty in its proper context is good. In these ads it is not. The ad company would say that the fact that we remember these ads is good, even if we remember it in a negative context. I'd say that if someone with a high tolerance for crap ads now boycotts their product, while still saying it's a good product, just because of the ads, well that's really bad.
-----
My problem with these ads is that they've ruined my aural fixation. That's aural as in sound, not oral as in, well the oral that every guy is fixated on...
I used to like to hear a woman's orgasmic experience: part of my ratings on the best ahem movies of a certain genre were based upon the actresses aural talents in addition to, well, her oral talents.
But Clairol has ruined it by showing all these skanks getting off through their hair! It's everywhere on TV. It's no longer restricted viewing and I've now become de-sensitized to it on screen. It's on in the freaking daytime!
I blame Meg Ryan.
I blame the Kaplan Thaler Group for coming up with this moronic campaign.
I blame everyone who is still buying Herbal Essences for convincing these morons that their campaign is actually working.
-----
Oh, by the way, best onscreen orgasm (aural) in a mainstream movie is in Rambling Rose by Laura Dern, about an hour in. Also works as best babysitter fantasy scene as well...You definitely ARE going to hell, Rose...
June 03, 2003
One of Mom's Favourites
My mother died in 1992.
If she hadn't this would've killed her.
My mother made me sit through the Thorn Birds every single night it was on. She'd shhh me every time Richard Chamberlain showed his face on the screen.
I wonder what she'd have thought about this. Sometimes people can surprise you.
PS. No baby yet (sigh)