LIfe Decisions at Dunkin’ Donuts

Dr. Phil says that there are 7 decisions which we make during our lives that determine whether we will be wintering in Aruba or spending it in Hartford, Connecticut collecting returnable bottles in a discarded shopping cart.  I made the decision not to navigate his site looking for an explanation of the ‘Big 7,’ but I wondered how it could be narrowed down to just seven.  I mean, it couldn’t be the same for everyone; not all of us will have to decide whether to stay home and use the Ouija Board with crazy Mary or go to Ford’s Theatre.  And, if you are aware of what the ‘Big 7’ are and you know that you just went all-in on number 7, does that mean that all future decisions you make will not have life altering effects?  That could be cool.

But anyhoo, I’m quite sure that one of Dr. Phil’s ‘Big 7’ is not going into a Dunkin’ Donuts and ordering a dozen donuts.  You wouldn’t feel this way, however, if you took note of how some people handle this process.

In most Dunkin’ Donuts store I’ve gone into, there are (yes, I’ve counted – field study) approximately 15-17 different donut types on display (without the fruit flies that appear to prefer “la boulange” at Starbucks.).

Now, just for review in the chance that you are on the negative side of the education gap, in most cases there are 12 donuts in a dozen.

So you are choosing 12 out of a possible 15-17 options.

Despite the limited options people enter this process like it demands some sort of critical intelligence.  They put more thought in which 12 donuts will make it into the box than they do in choosing a candidate for President.  They give their order with more pauses and “aahs” than a Ted Kennedy speech.

“Oh my God, what if I do not like some of the options, which ones do I double up on?”  Aaahhhhhhh!!!!  They look around feverishly for a Democrat to tell them what the best choice for them to make is.

This is not Powerball; you do not win a prize if you pick the correct combination of donuts.

This could be a game show:  “Would you like the prize behind the Bavarian Kreme or what lies behind the Double Chocolate Cake donut?  You have 10 seconds!”

Just tell the light-on-the-English clerk to throw 12 of the damn things in a box and drag your fat ass back to your mini-van!  Unless you are in your mini-van and you are making this order through the drive-through window, in which case the customer behind you ought to be allowed to destroy you and your vehicle with a rocket propelled grenade.

And remember, there is probably a customer behind you that would just like to get a coffee and get out of there…and it’s probably me!

SOME OF MY FACEBOOK ‘FRIENDS’ ARE CRIMINALS

This is true according to the subject line of repeated spam emails I receive in my Yahoo account.

Yahoo’s spam blocker needs a major overhaul; it’s as efficient as Congress.   Perhaps, also like Congress, it has sold itself, and therefore you, out to special interests that wish to profit on your many emotions and, in some cases, bring about technological angina.  Meanwhile, Yahoo yells yahoo all the way to the bank.

The folks at SECURELIST.com, a cyber comfy site published by the Kaspersky security software folks, say that “70-80% of all email traffic is spam.”  CampaignMonitor.com says that nearly 10% of all email accounts are owned by Yahoo.  So how long does it take to ride the train from New York to Atlanta?

Obviously, this garbage, like most advertising and politics, is effective because there are those who swallow it as being legitimate; people click and open this shit.  You are the fish and the spam is the fisherman dangling the hook with a rubber worm.  In Lake Yahoo, the fisherman seeks to hook you with the lure of money, sex, and in one case, a product to download which will prevent you from getting spam…like this one.

Apparently I’ve won the Irish Lottery…a number of times.  I have a secret benefactor in Nigeria that would like to give me a million dollars; I just have to email him my bank account information.  Apparently I’ve been voting early and often as both Democrats and Republicans have been emailing me, thanking me for my vote.  To some I have erection issues (not of the World Trade Center Memorial variety) while others, most likely tramps rejected from GoDaddy.com, like my pictures and would like to meet; apparently I have nice hands.

Like epitaphs on gravestones, some of these are hilarious.

I long ago switched to Outlook as my main email provider; their lookout for spam has been, in my experience, much better than those employed at Yahoo.

So, while some of my Facebook ‘friends’ may be Democrats, I doubt any of them are criminals.

“Who Are You?”

Oops, can’t ask that (unless you work at the NSA or Facebook, but then, they already know who you are).

“I woke up in a Soho doorway, a policeman knew my name.”

Cannot question the identity of someone stumbling into a voting booth (at least I couldn’t because I only speak English.).  What do you mean, who am I?  This Blockbuster membership card tells you who I am, jeez.

Cannot question someone’s national identity because they’re here to make America better, like your immigrant ancestors did after they waited for days on Ellis Island while their identity was checked.

But their lack of legal national identity will allow them to collect tax payer monies (and they’re not concerned who is paying what) to assist them in getting a driver’s license (NYC spending millions on this program), which many US citizens apparently do not have since they cuss when having to show ID at the voting booth.

“God, there’s got to be another way!”

Neither should we be able to question the identity of anyone who waves a little membership card for some stigmatized group; which is getting closer to mean anyone not white and not over 50 (did I just stigmatize old white people?).

My God, I’ve seen people get upset when they are asked to show some identification as they attempt to make a purchase on a credit card.  Never mind that it is a practice designed to protect them and never mind that that person would scream the loudest while demanding to know who charged a $1,000 on their MasterCard at a local strip club (where nobody knows anybody and no one gives a damn really).

Old jokes about not catching the name of the tramp you brought home last night have morphed into a quest for a cultural norm.

“I felt a little like a dying clown…”

However, if you are a gun owner then every liberal rag in the nation has the right to publish your name so that your neighbors know who amongst the US citizenry is concerned with their Constitutional rights – liberals are frightened by the audacity of someone they know is not a member of their little group attempting to exercise their rights.

“I stepped back and I hiccuped…”

“So, who are you, oh, who the fuck are you!?”

My Objective Is Not To Be Objective

Damn it,  I’m not a news reporter!

Three teenagers were killed this morning when the car in which they were riding went out of control and struck a bridge abutment.  Mourners at the scene told reporters that they were “good kids.”

Or…

Three teenagers, with nothing better to do at 2 a.m. and with their parents failing in their parental duties, and while fueled by alcohol and weed, were killed while acting recklessly and irresponsibly as they sped through city streets at a high rate of speed, ending only when a bridge abutment jumped right out in front of them.  Mourners at the scene, calling them “good kids” and having emptied the local Dollar Store of candles which they placed at the scene, creating a shrine to stupidity and ignorance – the bigger tragedy – ignored the fact that the driver had a suspended license for past vehicular malfeasance, and 2 of the dumb little bastards had just been released from juvenile detention for drug violations.

The first piece is normally how these incidents are reported in your local rag of a newspaper, giving you the facts while seemingly blaming the accident not on the stupidity of the individuals involved but on a car that “went out of control,” all by itself like it was Christine.  The piece also presents the Oprah side of the tragedy as family and friends of the dearly departed gather to give reporters nothing but glowing testimony about the character of the “victims.” 

The second piece, while still presenting the facts, in fact, more facts than many want to hear at a moment like this, gives you the writer’s (oh, that would be me) opinion on reckless, unguided, and socially excused behaviors such as this that often lead to accidents such as this.   Hello!

Like most pseudo-writers spewing digital pages of reckless verbiage into the internet universe, my aim is to present an opinion or a feeling about a certain topic while leaving the bland reporting of the “he said/she said,” “he did/she did” facts to the very few objective news sources that exist in the real world.

Opinion does not dilute fact.  However, as Plutarch would agree, the truth can sometimes be a bitch when looked at through an opinionated microscope.  Your not agreeing with or being particularly open to hearing a diverse opinion, does not change the facts.

I bring this up as a self-described “newspaperman” of some years commented on a piece I wrote about the trials, tribulations, and idiocy involved in Puerto Rico’s history since Teddy Roosevelt cleaned his goggles of San Juan beach mist (http://waltkienia.hubpages.com/hub/HELL-NO-PUERTO-RICO).

Based on the Newspaperman’s Bible, this commenter was put off by of my lack of objectivity in the piece, while also telling me that the piece was too long and he didn’t read the whole thing (imagine that, a newspaperman who doesn’t like to read).   I thanked him for reading and commenting and thought to myself:  hey, it’s about Puerto Rico, how objective can you be while still being conscious?

We Are Going To Have A Conversation Today

We are going to have a conversation today that will be based on emotion rather than the facts.  When facts are entered into the conversation, they will be dismissed and ignored as being emblematic of what I consider to be a larger social injustice.

You will know when this occurs as I will become more and more illogical in my retorts.

We are going to have a conversation today where my hypocrisy is not to be made an issue.  Your hypocrisy has been a historic nightmare of oppression and I think it is time some guys like me had some fun.

Equality is a rascal, isn’t it?

We are going to have a conversation today where my irresponsibility, stupidity, ignorance, and failures are not to be questioned.  These are baseless generalizations that have no standing in my perception of the facts.

That white powder in that vial is medicine for a post-traumatic stress disorder – living in society with you.

We are going to have a conversation today where elements of your culture, your religion, and your social norms are to be accepted as prima facie evidence of all of my ills.  I will mix pride and disgust with these issues for selective righteous and defensive evidence of my moderation while showcasing your radical thought patterns.

During our conversation I will give you water but you may not drink it.

We are going to have a conversation today where your intelligent discourse will be curtailed.  When it is allowed, I am obligated to equate that as your maintaining a condescending attitude toward people who haven’t the desire or the skills necessary to think for themselves.  Instead, my classless quips and rhetorical laments shall be inferred as being a unique and strategic method of connecting with those who prefer or better understand such low level drivel.

Words matter.

We are going to have conversation today where, lacking an intelligent response, I may show extreme indignation for what you say.  My illogical emotional outbursts will be considered to be a sign of my competitiveness and drive for freedom from your oppressive society.

You will know when this occurs as I will become loud and obnoxious, while also becoming quite repetitive.

So, less it be said that I am obstructing this conversation, what have you to say?

Where’s the outrage? The law?

I Disagree Because You’re An Ugly Idiot

This is why I quit drinking.

Trying to have a reasonable, intelligent conversation within the comments section of an online story or article is like trying to reason with a babbling drunk.  Then again, I’ve known drunks who were surprisingly able to coherently and intelligently present a case for one thing or another better than many who take part in online “discussions,” yes, it may have been on why they should have another drink, but even so…

The right to free speech and the internet have served to strengthen how foreigners view Americans; they’re vulgar, egotistical, and classless while also not being ashamed to prove it.  With overinflated and undeserved egos, many online commenters disregard reasoned and tactful discussion for loud and obnoxious personal attacks as if they were being turned away at the DMV.  Winning friends and influencing people is less of a goal than is feeding some deep seated vengeance against social failure.

No matter the issue or which side of the issue you choose to look at, each will be supported with comments from those that choose to bring their deviant social behavior to the online world.  Serving up a shot from the ‘benefit of the doubt’ bottle, we might surmise that the internet is still relatively young, and we are therefore like children in a young world, still learning how to act when mom and dad are not holding our hand.

We are slugged with comments heavy with bias and passion and light on logic and knowledge.  This is how we eat, drink, and stumble through life.  Beevis and Butthead are alive and well and they’re using the internet. 

Trashmouth commenting is supported by our buddies who slap us on the back and let us drive home drunk; by a nonprofessional media world drooling for conflict; and by the little tramp at home willing to agree with anything you do because you have empowered her miserable little life with three- minute sex.

As I write this, the Zimmerman NOT GUILTY verdict has been delivered.  Read the comments section of stories covering this decision and watch the vitriol flow like drool from the lips of an infant.

Please feel free to leave your comments below.

Spending The Day With Stupid

Quietly sitting in my smoking perch, the back veranda (well, it’s actually a porch but I’m trying to sound high-minded here), I am able to observe humanity in it’s less than glorious state.  While gazing at this living edition of Cracked magazine I shake my head and say to the squirrel eating a nut on a nearby tree, “..and these people are allowed to vote, have children, and install your cable TV.”

In this instant, while far too many in society are stumbling their way through a life pattern that resembles a closed circle, I am insulated from this social plague by distance, nicotine, and caffeine.   Unfortunately I do not live on an island off of the coast of Maine, so at some point I have to wrap myself in my stupid-condom and become intimate with what is passing for civilization in 2013.

Entering the house to ready myself for the day, I pass the television in the sitting room (living room for those not of high-mindedness) just as the morning news began a story on a local murder.  It was 6:30 in the morning and there, in living color, was this on-sight roaming reporter, broadcasting live outside the court house, which at this time of the morning was dark and empty, but where in 4 hours the alleged murderer would be arraigned.  Every so often during her story, the reporter would turn, look and point at the court house as if expecting it to saunter up at any minute and issue an official statement.  As to the story, apparently some scumbag disrespected another scumbag (neither one of them who were able to spell or correctly define ‘respect’) and so scumbag #2 shot scumbag #1 through the coconut.  Number 2 was apprehended by the men and women of law enforcement when his getaway was hindered by the fact that he was wearing his pants half way down around his ass.

I make my way to City Hall, whose walls are adorned with the photographs of the convicted and non-convicted felons who once served time as Mayor of this ‘great city’ due to the power of the ‘rational’ and ‘informed’ voter, to pay the property tax on my mobile property – my car. I’m standing in line behind a woman who is wearing house slippers and who is talking loudly on her cell phone (apparently someone didn’t ‘axe’ someone else if they could ‘do dat’) at the same time she was being helped by the clerk-type person.  The clerk handed the woman a form and said, “Sign here, ma’am.”  The woman’s mouth fell open, her eyes bulged out and, disturbed by the fact that her telephone conversation was being interrupted by what the clerk was “axing” her to do, said, “What?”  “Sign here, please,” said the clerk again.  The woman, with an unabashed lack of logic and intuition, said, “Sign my name?”  I’m thinking to myself, “No, sign my name, you ignorant tramp!”

Having paid my taxes so that the non-English speaking residents of this city are able to eat better than I, I headed for a coffee fix at Dunkin´ Donuts.  Putting on my best “no cigarettes and no change” look, I maneuvered my way around the unofficial Dunkin’ Donuts greeters and entered the store.  After 10 minutes of waiting in line, watching and listening and wondering what the hell country I was in, I was one person away from scoring my fix.  “America Runs On Dunkin’,” unfortunately the American idiot directly in front of me did not.  After having spent more than 10 minutes in line, this moron had no idea what he wanted and instead, acted like it was the first time he had ever stepped foot in an place that is on more street corners in America than hookers.  It’s a good thing that God made breathing non-voluntary.

I witnessed a man putting $5.00 worth of gas in his car and then burning most of that as he left the gas station like he was Wendell Scott, taking the red-light he went through as a mere suggestion rather than a minor law society enacts to keep order.

I passed a convenience store where several young people were leaning on and talking around a trash can, while throwing their soda bottles and candy wrappers on the ground.

And then there was the usual sighting of the “red-light creepers.”  You know who they are.  They will approach a red-light but stop well before the light.  As soon as another car comes up behind them, they creep forward a bit and stop.  The car behind does the same.  This process is repeated until the light finally turns green.  Today, the “creeper” was the second car waiting for the light, but with plenty of room between him and the first car.  Car number three comes up from behind.  The “creeper” jumps forward and stops.  Number three doesn’t move.   The “creeper” repeats this but the third car still holds still.  The “creeper” then makes three 3 quick jumps forward.  Again, number three doesn’t move.  Again, the “creeper” jumps forward.  BANG!  He runs into the first car.

Sometimes stupid can give me a reason to smile.

GAY DIVORCE

After all, gay couples are equal to straight couples, right?

America once had a problem with the issue of divorce.  Now, we’re pretty good at it.  No problem.  Nearly half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce.

Into this melodrama enters gay couples, giving Gloria Allred type people a whole new line of legal work.

Susan Sommer, a Lambda Legal director, has already fired another shot in the battle of gay rights.  Sommer told the Wall Street Journal (“Same-sex Divorce Stats Lag”) that as far as gay couples getting divorced, there is “no reason to deprive them of this really important right.”  Sommer claims that states will not grant divorces to gay couples hitched in another state.  Some gay marriage supporters claim that the reason gay couples should be allowed to marry is so that they can get divorced (loveandpride.com).

You know you have really arrived at the level of equal rights when you have the right to divorce.  Similarly, when gay married couples in Kentucky start appearing on episodes of COPS beating on each other, you’ll know that change and equality has come to America.

Perhaps data will not be collected for gay divorces as noisy civil rights type people complain that it stigmatizes a minority group in the population.

The Wall Street Journal article says that worldwide statistics for gay divorce are very limited, even in countries that have allowed gay marriage for quite some time.  The tracking record in the United States is even weaker, obviously.  According to the Journal article, most often, in any divorce, the genders of the parties involved in a divorce are not recorded. A lesbian couple in Oklahoma was granted a divorce; the divorce was ruled void when it was discovered that the couple were of the same sex (marriageequality.org).  So, gathering that data will take some research.

And look at that, Esther Rothblum, San Diego State University professor and her crew have received a $1.2 million dollar grant from the federal government (was this stimulus money?) to see how those gay couples that tied the civil knot in Vermont in 2000 and 2001 are doing today compared with their straight friends who coupled at the same time.

I’m sure the long running television show Divorce Court is mining the field trying to get their first gay divorce.

Facebook Needs a ‘Thumbs Down’ Icon

Society has been Oprah-nized.

The new social paradigm states that we must be accepting of all and to all we must have faith that if they are number than a pounded thumb, God and a great big hug will heal them.

I say give ‘em a kick in the ass and tell ‘em to smarten the hell up.

We have to be more sensitive to the hyper-sensitive; it is our responsibility to help the irresponsible; we must be positive toward the negative; and “red is gray and yellow white.”

OH, HOW I LOVE YOU!!!   

Give me a freakin’ break, already.

Every back-asswards behavior is analyzed as an addiction, given a cute little acronym, or excused due to some historical trauma.

Back in the day the only label that was relevant was Black Label.

Squeezing into this global group hug is Facebook.

Right away you are told to “accept” some digital stranger to be a “friend.”  Your husband or wife is waiting in the bedroom for you and you’re online trading cute little kitty photos with someone who may be a member of Al-Qaeda.

I apologize to all my Al-Qaeda “friends;”  I suppose they’re capable of having an affinity for the furry little bastards.

So you are in this little Facebook community and you got the News Feed thing cranked up and all these “friends” are “sharing” some pretty lame shit.

I mean, is it necessary to let your group of “friends” know that you have to take a break because your one year-old just burped up his strained peas?  “Oh, how cute! “

Cute my ass (this is what the kid is thinking, not me).

Now, if the little shit jumps up, grabs the Gibson and rips off some Kashmir, post that sucker!

The point is that we are, as civilized members of the Facebook community, socialized to accept all “shared” communiqué from what is in some cases a list of thousands of “friends.”

Facebook protocol does not allow you to designate the posting of “friend” as being a total piece of crap. But you can push the hell out of that ‘thumbs up’ icon all day long. 

Yes, you could just fill in the comment section of the egregious post with a…few choice words, however, the social engineering behind Facebook tells us that it is not nice to diss your “friends.”

In the days of our youth, when our flesh and blood “friends” said or did something only a mother could smile at, it was quite normal to call them a dumb fuck.

Not now.  Now we just give that little fake Nancy Pelosi smile and let it stand.

It was once considered helpful, and necessary, to let your “friends” know that what they are doing could be the manifestation of incurable liberalism – no, I’m kidding, that just came so natural I had to leave it in – seriously, tough love and constructive criticism was once seen as a positive, nurturing, blessed thing to show toward a “friend.”

So if you tell me that this sucked, it’s ok, I’ll grow.

Oh Lord.