Thought for the day

Is The Price Is Right the minor league developmental system for the appraisal industry?

Thought for the day

Concrete workers of the world, hear me: you must reduce your expansion gaps by a few millimeters. The current distance between slabs seems to be exactly equal to the diameter of the average cigarette filter, thus ensuring that every discarded butt in creation ends up permanently wedged in my sidewalk.

This is your math on drugs

The tip and total on this credit card voucher were filled out by a person who, I can personally assure you, is an intelligent and productive member of society:

In case you were wondering, kids: yes, alcohol really can make you retarded.

I Could Be President (Now Talk Me Into It)

I’m pretty sure I could be president of the United States. I mean, I’m not nearly educated enough, and I don’t have a lick of innate political acumen. Come to think of it, the only real leadership experience I bring to the table is over a decade of managing a small-town bar– probably not what the American electorate wants to see on a resume before handing over the launch codes.

Still, I’m sure I can do it. In fact, I think anybody could become president, given as much positive reinforcement as today’s candidates receive over a long election season.

First, people all over the country start sending cash. How great is that? I don’t know about you, but I get pretty excited when my tax refund shows up, and that’s once a year. I’d need emergency cosmetic surgery to remove my smile if I got a sack full of personal checks every single day.

And then, thousands of people show up and cheer for me every day, chanting my name and wearing funny hats with my name on them… I’d probably start to think I was pretty hot shit.

Then, as I start to build momentum, my defeated opponents tell all their supporters to vote for me. I casually swat their life’s work to the ground and they endorse me? I must be great.

And there’s the guards, whose entire raison d’être is to get shot on my behalf. Whole human beings who earnestly believe my life is worth more than theirs, a lot of them honest-to-God military hero types? Forget my defeated opponents; that’s endorsement.

And “super delegates”? That’s the coolest term ever invented by any political party, ever. It’s like the Justice League is on my side!

Finally, millions(!) of people take an hour or so out of their day in November, just to tell me that they think I should be in charge of everything in the world. Then, I get to watch TV news personalities call me a “winner” over and over for several days, and put a number next to my face that is greater than the number next to my opponent’s face (bigger numbers = superior life form).

So yeah, I could be president– I just need a little confidence boost, first. So if anybody can think of a way I could experience massive funding, overwhelming public support, and ultimate victory before I announce my candidacy, I just might throw my hat into the ring for 2012.

What’s In a Name? Pure Evil.

When I’m Supreme Ruler of All I Survey, the first thing I’ll do is confiscate a great deal of wealth for my own personal pleasure. (I’d like to pretend I’m a better person than this, but hey, I’m Supreme Ruler and that means perks, baby.) Some time shortly thereafter, I’ll get down to the business of making everybody’s lives much better with my second order of business: I shall forbid congress to name their bills.

No names, not ever. Date-time stamp them (“House Bill 200802131306″), or assign them ascending prime numbers (“Senate Bill 6637″), or maybe even just use whatever numbering system you already have in place, but don’t tack on any helpful descriptions, thank you very much. I don’t care if that makes individual pieces of legislation difficult to distinguish; every last one of you congressional types have laptops and assistants and freaking pens and paper, so take some notes and sort it out.

The problem with giving bills nicknames is that politicians, clever and resourceful creatures that they are, have a talent for naming their bills in a manner that makes other politicians look like assholes for voting them down:

…You don’t want military recruiters to have greater access to our children and their personal information? That’s all well and good, but you’ll have to vote against the No Child Left Behind Act… and that makes you a bad person who wants to leave children behind. Look, voters: see those children wandering around the parking lot, panicked and crying? It’s ’cause this guy voted to leave them behind!

…Want to prevent potentially abusive wiretapping of American citizens? All right, but that makes you an opponent of the Patriot Act, not to mention the Protect America Act. That’s right: I said you’re anti-patriotic person who wants to leave Americans unprotected, you damn dirty commie!

…You think restrictions on firearms infringe on important constitutional rights? Well, that’s your opinion, but I hope you’re prepared to vote down the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. Of course, a “no” vote on this means you A) absolutely adore handgun violence, and B) think that Jim Brady deserves to be confined to a wheelchair. You just hate cripples, don’t you?

If bills were designated only by ugly chunks of nondescriptive text, legislators and their constituents wouldn’t get hung up on the emotional baggage of words like “Children” and “Protect” and “Freedom” and “Puppies” (you do remember the “Vote For This Or You Hate Little Puppies Act” of 1986, don’t you?). Congress could finally debate and vote for bills solely on the content of the proposed law.

(For the record, the last law with a name would be the “Okay, I Officially Declare An End To Naming Bills, But Not Until After This Bill Is Signed Into Law” law of 2008).

Rights as Wrongs

Pedestrians have the RIGHT of way… but it is WRONG to walk out into traffic. That’s you, (probably young) person casually sauntering through the “DON’T WALK” signal.

You have the RIGHT to voice your opinion… but it is WRONG to call an ugly person ugly to his face, or inform a 300-pound woman that she’s fat. A-hole.

You have the RIGHT to move very slowly, or even stop moving entirely, pretty much whenever and wherever you like. It is WRONG of you to do so in chokepoints that obstruct the movements of others. This means you, old ladies hobbling two and three abreast through narrow grocery store aisles, and you, kids braking in the middle of the road to chat with the (similarly immobile) driver in the next lane.

–Ray

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(FICTION) On Ogrish Poetry

The following lacks words, plot, and characters enough to be as a short story, or even a piece of “flash fiction”. In truth, it hardly qualifies as a vignette. Still, I had this fragment of an idea, and started typing.

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As far as anyone could make out, there was no reason for Ogres to be the absolute best poets in the Known Lands.  As a species, their command of the spoken word was dubious, their understanding of the underlying tenets of grammar and usage doubtful, and such niceties as simile, tone, and anapestic tetrameter demonstrably beyond their grasp.  And yet, Ogrish poets consistently produced works of thunderous depth and soul-shattering truth.  That the quills were most often gripped with a full fist and inked with the blood of unwary travellers was immaterial, as were the green-tinted drool spots that adorned the original texts.  The spelling was horrific (the Guild of Prose routinely flung budding authors into deep ravines to appease Kairpoln, Undergod of Easily Corrected Errors, for lesser offenses), but such trivial blemishes only served to underscore the brilliance of the material.  As Manumon The Exceptionally Long-Lived said: “To hear the message of a god is the highest honor, even if he is belching the words.”