I am totally amazed at the number of firearms "experts" who tell people how to deal with a confrontation involving a firearm in the hands of someone who wishes to do them harm but they themselves have never had to make that choice. It is like people telling someone how to sail a ship yet they have never have been to sea. I believe the term is “armchair quarterbacking”.
If you have never had to make the choice, shut up. Period, you do not have any idea what you are talking about.
They say how this firearm or that is just for killing and has no other use, yet, they have never even handled one nor no nothing about how to. They make grand pronouncements about how much safer we would be without guns, yet ignore the factual proof we have from places with such gun control. The gun itself is not the problem. It is the mindset many have about guns. Mostly people who have never been taught to respect them or their capabilities seem to espouse this view.
They shout about licenses, limits and this or that. Regulate. We already have regulation. What seems to be missing and more to the point is that the object itself is blameless. It is the intent of the user. Let us say for a moment for this exercise that guns are outlawed. So, consider this, will a criminal with mental issues say “I can’t use a gun…that would be illegal.” No, it would not even hinder for a moment. And since we are in the land of make believe for a moment let us say he does pass on the gun. He will find another way. Explosives, gas attack, poisons are all possible. Anyone with even a few minutes time can figure out how to do something of this nature. The object is removed and we are again left with the person. It is their intent and if so motivated they will find a way.
Some say it is the availability of guns. Again we hear the chants of those who have never tried to buy one legally. It is not as easy as it sounds with the background checks, waiting periods and such. It is much easier to go to your local grocery store and buy the necessary items to kill THOUSANDS at once without even getting a second look. I think in the area of legal ownership we have right now struck a balance between law and rights. It may not be a perfect balance but it is a reasonable one.
Where the imbalance exists is once again with the individual. I would say that what is needed is not more laws or restrictions, but more availability of compassion for your fellow human being. Who knows how many times a simple 'hello' or 'how are you doing?' has tipped the scales for someone. An act of kindness that helps draw them back from the brink of destruction can perhaps never be measured. We expect those with mental problems to seek help yet few are willing to extend a hand to help them.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
He’s not dead yet!
Sorry for the delays in posting. Life has been interesting. Working my usual job that can run all hours of the day and night I am also finishing up teaching this quarter. So, that being said the quarter is slowly coming to a close and perhaps a few more words will flow out that have of late.
Now on to my question for everyone:
What do you want to see here? More of my fiction? Daily events? Plans for world domination? It is time to chime in and let me know.
For now, I will just leave this here and see what people say.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Spammers from the 8th dimention
Okay so I get his email spam and I just could not let it go without a reply. Not everyone will get the reference that struck me funny, but give it a read anyway :)
Attention,
I am barrister Jerry Donald, I work with Benin Embassy here in Benin Republic, A delivery agent by name John Parker came down last week from your country with consignment contained $5.5 Million Dollars. He submitted the package to our office on his arrival and later on his body was found dead in a ghastly auto crash in the city.
So we decided to send the package back to your country via diplomatic service as we couldn't find the beneficiary because there is no other way to locate you in respect of the package, the only information we have about you is your email ID which he wrote somewhere in the papers attached to the package. So we are emailing you in respect of this to know if you are the rightful owner of the consignment so that you can contact the assigned senior diplomat who arrive your country with the package a while ago.
Please if you are the owner kindly contact the diplomat by E-mail (XXX@XXX.jp) and reconfirm your full information such as your name your home address, your contact phone number and nearest airport to enable him deliver the package to you safely; the diplomat is stranded so try and get in contact with him immediately.
Best Regard
Jerry Donald.
Greetings Barrister Jerry Donald,
I hope this finds you in the best way of happiness. I am concerned as to John Parker as we have not heard from him in a long time. I must ask for sake of confidentiality that you do not discuss this incident with anyone, especially those from Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems in New Jersey. I have been expecting John Parker for some time but must confirm the package. Was it a cake box tied with string? I am unsure of the money in the box, but was there contained inside a copy of an American comic book “Buckaroo Banzai” dated of late? Or perhaps several masks made of plastic wrap, a record and a small toy car? Of these things I must know to validate your claim. I would exercise caution at this point as the monies you have said were in the box may belong to The World Crime League. Take great care of your personal safety.
Best Regard, BEW
Stay tuned and lets see how this plays out, shall we? :)
Attention,
I am barrister Jerry Donald, I work with Benin Embassy here in Benin Republic, A delivery agent by name John Parker came down last week from your country with consignment contained $5.5 Million Dollars. He submitted the package to our office on his arrival and later on his body was found dead in a ghastly auto crash in the city.
So we decided to send the package back to your country via diplomatic service as we couldn't find the beneficiary because there is no other way to locate you in respect of the package, the only information we have about you is your email ID which he wrote somewhere in the papers attached to the package. So we are emailing you in respect of this to know if you are the rightful owner of the consignment so that you can contact the assigned senior diplomat who arrive your country with the package a while ago.
Please if you are the owner kindly contact the diplomat by E-mail (XXX@XXX.jp) and reconfirm your full information such as your name your home address, your contact phone number and nearest airport to enable him deliver the package to you safely; the diplomat is stranded so try and get in contact with him immediately.
Best Regard
Jerry Donald.
Greetings Barrister Jerry Donald,
I hope this finds you in the best way of happiness. I am concerned as to John Parker as we have not heard from him in a long time. I must ask for sake of confidentiality that you do not discuss this incident with anyone, especially those from Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems in New Jersey. I have been expecting John Parker for some time but must confirm the package. Was it a cake box tied with string? I am unsure of the money in the box, but was there contained inside a copy of an American comic book “Buckaroo Banzai” dated of late? Or perhaps several masks made of plastic wrap, a record and a small toy car? Of these things I must know to validate your claim. I would exercise caution at this point as the monies you have said were in the box may belong to The World Crime League. Take great care of your personal safety.
Best Regard, BEW
Stay tuned and lets see how this plays out, shall we? :)
Saturday, November 26, 2011
It's alive!!!!
So, the blog is back. Thanks to Blogger being a little better than it was I was able to bring back all my archives. My /FORMER/ isp changed all the stuff around so I could no longer post. Thanks guys.
I hope to be a little more frequent in my posts an hope it will help a little with the creative roadblocks of late.
I hope to be a little more frequent in my posts an hope it will help a little with the creative roadblocks of late.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Found in Space
I stood on the exterior of the old station staring up at the stars. Yet another dark night alone, or was it daytime back there? All time measured by the clocks without sunrise or sunset. No points of reference anymore. I’m too far from home, too far gone and too many days till I can return. A silly idea but I brought the old cargo box I found floating outside yesterday. I clipped it to a nearby ring and stood on it, paying out my safety line. Now, I am 3 feet closer to home than I was yesterday.
Bliss...
Bliss...
Monday, March 16, 2009
Feburaury?
Okay it slipped by for a lot of reasons. Sorry about the lack of posts but to make up for it I am posting a bit of writing. Enjoy!
Few things are as frightening as a group of members of some bizarre civic group at 3 am in some seedy motel where they claim to be having some sort of convention. These things more often than not are nothing more than a chance to relive some sort of glory days of frat parties long missed and to provide excuses for tearing at the social fabric of society.
Secret handshakes and free hits of ecstasy make for an unruly and potentially dangerous crowd, especially when the midnight buffet begins to serve the all you can eat steaks for $7.99. Like animals they tear at one another with verbal claws and
knowing nods to each other, a respite form their unbridled liquor and mating fest that has permeated the wee hours of the morning while they run from room to room screaming about the lack of towels and ice buckets that are not just empty but make
fetching hats.
The parking lot looks like a collection of an oil sheiks wet dream. Land yachts without the wet bar or the ability to just let it float on the open road when your too ripped to actually pilot the things. Some of them are the standards of gold,
sliver and cosmetic dealer pink, but now and again you get flashbacks of some once cool high school jock trying to relive the 70s with a half buttoned shirt and a leisure green caddy with gold rims. The American dream with one dose of mescaline and two shots of tequila, hold the lemon. The workers of places like this seem to be jaded to all excess that the human mind can conjure. A $20 dollar bill and any bell hop or house keeper can tell you stories involving any number of oddities whither they are animal, vegetable, or mineral does no matter. They all contain one common element; secrecy.
I found myself wedged into a rear corner table, not through some act of strategic planning but more in an act of desperation. It was not the fortress of some great tactician but more of the refuge of a man recoiling in fear. I took stock of my supplies, one shot of tequila, four quarter lemon wedges and one strangely suspicious kielbasa ordered from the menu of international cuisine that featured such culinary surprises as shlimp corktail, grailfrit and ribneyes stack. I decided to make a tactical withdrawal and slipped into the kitchen through the door nearby that kept slamming into the corner of my table.
This was one of the less intelligent moves of the evening as I now found myself a stranger in a strange land, where mixtures of Spanish and Vietnamese flew through the air like a snowstorm of accented syllables. I dodged past a short man who was holding what could have been a chicken by its feet, heading one direction or another up or down the evolutionary chain.
Past the busboy with more tattoos than most people, wearing a hairnet in the kitchen to satisfy not only health code but more than likely some little pencil necked geek that was his parole officer. The kind of little man when he holds the sack of your
freedom likes to give it a good yank now and then so he reminds you that he is still in charge. The little man type than when he does get busted for making the ex-cons pay him off usually hangs himself in the local jail instead of heading to prison for a fun reunion with a lot of his old friends he had sent back there to complete their sentences with a few years tacked on for some violation either actual or perceived.
I break out of the kitchen into the main hallway with the smells and hot steam clinging to me like a man who just stepped from the jungle into the $39.95 a night coolness of a cheap Florida hotel, the smell of cooled mold assaulting me as
I struggled down the hallway with my satchel over one shoulder, my tape recorder held tightly in the other hand, like some holy symbol that I was praying to in great hopes it would never be called exhibit A in the poor unfortunate case. I try to hurry, but not run as running makes the predators pay attention to you, more of a high speed nonchalant. A hurried walk of a man with someplace to be and in that being may save his life and perhaps the lives of all mankind. I pass the desk where the skinny clerk with the pencil thin mustache seems to be stuck mentally unable to say hello, only can I help you, sir. Past the bellboy who looks like someone shaved an orangutan yet never took him to a dentist but kept him hyped up and ready for
service on a steady diet of sodas, candy bars and the occasional transfusion of pig blood that had the unfortunate side effect of making him sweat a smell something akin to rancid bacon, with a quick turn I wedge into the elevator with some short fat man in a polyester suit and his equally pudgy wife who seems to squint at me through her cats eye glasses, secure and safe under the turret of hair that surmounts her scalp in a fashion that lasted about 20 minutes around 1950.
The doors open on floor three and I bolt from the small closet of a room with the blinking fluorescent light and into the hallway of gold and red cut shag carpet, careening down the hallway as I bounced off one wall to the other like a two legged q-ball until I reach what I thing is my room. A few seconds of fumbling as I search my pockets and finally dropping my keys to the floor I reach down to pick them up and check the tag versus the room number. They match and I shove the key into
the lock frantically twisting it back and forth until the door either yields to the key or to the randomness of the picking attempt.
I jump into the room almost falling as I spin to slam the door behind me, my body going limp as I slid down its smooth face to floor. Now only questions remain for me: Where am I, where am I, and perhaps most importantly, When am I?
I reached into my pocket for something to wipe the sweat from my eyes, the lava of burning salt now running into them. All I drew out was several coins, a few wheat pennies, 2 state quarters, a pfenning, and a 6 pence. No help there. I opened the satchel case and inside found the handkerchief I was hoping for and some file folders. I wiped my forehead and dropped the fabric aside, discarding it for the time being. I grabbed the case and lurched across the room to the floor mounted air conditioner, my free hand trembling as I set the controls to cold and fresh air. I took a moment and basked in the cold yet musty breeze from the box, till I turned around and sat with my back to the box. The cool air started to blow at the back of my head as I lifted the satchel onto my lap and began to rifle through the documents. My hands were sweating and starting to shake.
To give an account of the content there was two file folders with no writing on them, one what appeared to be scroll rolled tightly and tied with a red cord. Lastly was a thick folder that had a stamp on the exterior. I pulled that one out and there, emblazoned on the side was a large black eagle clutching a swastika. What was really shocking was what it said underneath of the stamp in the same ink "Property of The United States". I snatched up the tape-recorder again and hit rewind. The sound of 2000 chipmunks on some sort of bad amusement park ride barked at me. I waited till the silence came then hit play. Then voice sounded like mine and I felt the sweat begin to run down my arm from my hands, the rest of the world getting fuzzy. A lifeline came to me from the recorder "Get the bottle in the bottom of the bag you freak!" I yelled at myself, my hands dropping the recorder and grabbing up the satchel again. "The blue ones..if your hands are sweating you had better hurry. Sweaty hands mean your loosing your grip on this reality…Take them!" I found the bottle in the bottom and ripped the lid off. Inside were several small blue pills that I dumped into my mouth. In the background I can hear the ranting of a psychotic yelling about the brute squad going to be here any moment and to hurry. "Remember the grapefruit! It is the only thing safe to eat."
On my hands and knees I scrambled towards the mini-bar and grabbed a beer from the door. I ripped the top off of the bottle and tipped it back to wash the taste of rancid distilled mule ass from my mouth. I don’t know how I know that that tastes like but I was sure that was the correct description. Suddenly they began to take hold of me. I quickly felt like a brother to a goldfish swirling down a toilet bowl. Slowly first but then faster and then faster heading head long into oblivion into the great sewer of the universe. Dimension hopping, like a man on a pogo stick who someone had kindly painted the grip with a liquid form of acid. I remembered a white tunnel and the feeling of a combination of a water slide and a high pressure enema. The sensation was fun, fearful and wet pressure all at once as I fell downward, around the bend, past the u pipe into the cosmos at large with all the other effluent. I heard a voice telling me to stay calm, to keep myself grounded and eventually this will all be alright. Keep drinking for 24 hours. It will help with the shock. It was my voice coming from the recorder. How did I know what was going to happen when I didn’t even know what was happening?
I sat bolt upright, my mouth dry and my floral Hawaiian print shirt from a major retailer now wet with sweat and salt rings like a shoulder holster of doom showing I had been to the edge and made it back. Not a man to be fucked with in any way, shape or form. The bastards, making me run like a sniveling coward back here to this crappy room. I’ll show them.
I stuffed everything back into the briefcase and stopped the tape recorder. I tucked a grapefruit into the inner pocket of the satchel, supplies for emergencies. I pushed a lit cigarette into the holder between my teeth and donned my lucky hat. A green visor with Las Vegas emblazoned on the front. How dare they treat a doctor of journalism like this?
Now it’s payback time.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Few things are as frightening as a group of members of some bizarre civic group at 3 am in some seedy motel where they claim to be having some sort of convention. These things more often than not are nothing more than a chance to relive some sort of glory days of frat parties long missed and to provide excuses for tearing at the social fabric of society.
Secret handshakes and free hits of ecstasy make for an unruly and potentially dangerous crowd, especially when the midnight buffet begins to serve the all you can eat steaks for $7.99. Like animals they tear at one another with verbal claws and
knowing nods to each other, a respite form their unbridled liquor and mating fest that has permeated the wee hours of the morning while they run from room to room screaming about the lack of towels and ice buckets that are not just empty but make
fetching hats.
The parking lot looks like a collection of an oil sheiks wet dream. Land yachts without the wet bar or the ability to just let it float on the open road when your too ripped to actually pilot the things. Some of them are the standards of gold,
sliver and cosmetic dealer pink, but now and again you get flashbacks of some once cool high school jock trying to relive the 70s with a half buttoned shirt and a leisure green caddy with gold rims. The American dream with one dose of mescaline and two shots of tequila, hold the lemon. The workers of places like this seem to be jaded to all excess that the human mind can conjure. A $20 dollar bill and any bell hop or house keeper can tell you stories involving any number of oddities whither they are animal, vegetable, or mineral does no matter. They all contain one common element; secrecy.
I found myself wedged into a rear corner table, not through some act of strategic planning but more in an act of desperation. It was not the fortress of some great tactician but more of the refuge of a man recoiling in fear. I took stock of my supplies, one shot of tequila, four quarter lemon wedges and one strangely suspicious kielbasa ordered from the menu of international cuisine that featured such culinary surprises as shlimp corktail, grailfrit and ribneyes stack. I decided to make a tactical withdrawal and slipped into the kitchen through the door nearby that kept slamming into the corner of my table.
This was one of the less intelligent moves of the evening as I now found myself a stranger in a strange land, where mixtures of Spanish and Vietnamese flew through the air like a snowstorm of accented syllables. I dodged past a short man who was holding what could have been a chicken by its feet, heading one direction or another up or down the evolutionary chain.
Past the busboy with more tattoos than most people, wearing a hairnet in the kitchen to satisfy not only health code but more than likely some little pencil necked geek that was his parole officer. The kind of little man when he holds the sack of your
freedom likes to give it a good yank now and then so he reminds you that he is still in charge. The little man type than when he does get busted for making the ex-cons pay him off usually hangs himself in the local jail instead of heading to prison for a fun reunion with a lot of his old friends he had sent back there to complete their sentences with a few years tacked on for some violation either actual or perceived.
I break out of the kitchen into the main hallway with the smells and hot steam clinging to me like a man who just stepped from the jungle into the $39.95 a night coolness of a cheap Florida hotel, the smell of cooled mold assaulting me as
I struggled down the hallway with my satchel over one shoulder, my tape recorder held tightly in the other hand, like some holy symbol that I was praying to in great hopes it would never be called exhibit A in the poor unfortunate case. I try to hurry, but not run as running makes the predators pay attention to you, more of a high speed nonchalant. A hurried walk of a man with someplace to be and in that being may save his life and perhaps the lives of all mankind. I pass the desk where the skinny clerk with the pencil thin mustache seems to be stuck mentally unable to say hello, only can I help you, sir. Past the bellboy who looks like someone shaved an orangutan yet never took him to a dentist but kept him hyped up and ready for
service on a steady diet of sodas, candy bars and the occasional transfusion of pig blood that had the unfortunate side effect of making him sweat a smell something akin to rancid bacon, with a quick turn I wedge into the elevator with some short fat man in a polyester suit and his equally pudgy wife who seems to squint at me through her cats eye glasses, secure and safe under the turret of hair that surmounts her scalp in a fashion that lasted about 20 minutes around 1950.
The doors open on floor three and I bolt from the small closet of a room with the blinking fluorescent light and into the hallway of gold and red cut shag carpet, careening down the hallway as I bounced off one wall to the other like a two legged q-ball until I reach what I thing is my room. A few seconds of fumbling as I search my pockets and finally dropping my keys to the floor I reach down to pick them up and check the tag versus the room number. They match and I shove the key into
the lock frantically twisting it back and forth until the door either yields to the key or to the randomness of the picking attempt.
I jump into the room almost falling as I spin to slam the door behind me, my body going limp as I slid down its smooth face to floor. Now only questions remain for me: Where am I, where am I, and perhaps most importantly, When am I?
I reached into my pocket for something to wipe the sweat from my eyes, the lava of burning salt now running into them. All I drew out was several coins, a few wheat pennies, 2 state quarters, a pfenning, and a 6 pence. No help there. I opened the satchel case and inside found the handkerchief I was hoping for and some file folders. I wiped my forehead and dropped the fabric aside, discarding it for the time being. I grabbed the case and lurched across the room to the floor mounted air conditioner, my free hand trembling as I set the controls to cold and fresh air. I took a moment and basked in the cold yet musty breeze from the box, till I turned around and sat with my back to the box. The cool air started to blow at the back of my head as I lifted the satchel onto my lap and began to rifle through the documents. My hands were sweating and starting to shake.
To give an account of the content there was two file folders with no writing on them, one what appeared to be scroll rolled tightly and tied with a red cord. Lastly was a thick folder that had a stamp on the exterior. I pulled that one out and there, emblazoned on the side was a large black eagle clutching a swastika. What was really shocking was what it said underneath of the stamp in the same ink "Property of The United States". I snatched up the tape-recorder again and hit rewind. The sound of 2000 chipmunks on some sort of bad amusement park ride barked at me. I waited till the silence came then hit play. Then voice sounded like mine and I felt the sweat begin to run down my arm from my hands, the rest of the world getting fuzzy. A lifeline came to me from the recorder "Get the bottle in the bottom of the bag you freak!" I yelled at myself, my hands dropping the recorder and grabbing up the satchel again. "The blue ones..if your hands are sweating you had better hurry. Sweaty hands mean your loosing your grip on this reality…Take them!" I found the bottle in the bottom and ripped the lid off. Inside were several small blue pills that I dumped into my mouth. In the background I can hear the ranting of a psychotic yelling about the brute squad going to be here any moment and to hurry. "Remember the grapefruit! It is the only thing safe to eat."
On my hands and knees I scrambled towards the mini-bar and grabbed a beer from the door. I ripped the top off of the bottle and tipped it back to wash the taste of rancid distilled mule ass from my mouth. I don’t know how I know that that tastes like but I was sure that was the correct description. Suddenly they began to take hold of me. I quickly felt like a brother to a goldfish swirling down a toilet bowl. Slowly first but then faster and then faster heading head long into oblivion into the great sewer of the universe. Dimension hopping, like a man on a pogo stick who someone had kindly painted the grip with a liquid form of acid. I remembered a white tunnel and the feeling of a combination of a water slide and a high pressure enema. The sensation was fun, fearful and wet pressure all at once as I fell downward, around the bend, past the u pipe into the cosmos at large with all the other effluent. I heard a voice telling me to stay calm, to keep myself grounded and eventually this will all be alright. Keep drinking for 24 hours. It will help with the shock. It was my voice coming from the recorder. How did I know what was going to happen when I didn’t even know what was happening?
I sat bolt upright, my mouth dry and my floral Hawaiian print shirt from a major retailer now wet with sweat and salt rings like a shoulder holster of doom showing I had been to the edge and made it back. Not a man to be fucked with in any way, shape or form. The bastards, making me run like a sniveling coward back here to this crappy room. I’ll show them.
I stuffed everything back into the briefcase and stopped the tape recorder. I tucked a grapefruit into the inner pocket of the satchel, supplies for emergencies. I pushed a lit cigarette into the holder between my teeth and donned my lucky hat. A green visor with Las Vegas emblazoned on the front. How dare they treat a doctor of journalism like this?
Now it’s payback time.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Mashup Fun
Take a favorite movie; now recast it with the most improbable characters.
I took
"A funny thing happened on the way to the forum" and
"The Muppet Show"
Can’t you just hear Kermit singing
"Your so lovely" to Piggy?
Pseudolus - Fozzy Bear
Marcus Lycus - The Great Gonzo
Girls of the House of Lycus - Camilla and the chickens
Erronius - Dr. Bunsen Honeydew (and Beaker!)
Hero - Kermit the Frog
Hysterium - Rizzo The Rat
Philia - Miss Piggy
Senex - Dr. Teeth
Domina - Janice
Captain Miles Gloriosus - Sam the Eagle
The pain...oh the pain.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
I took
"A funny thing happened on the way to the forum" and
"The Muppet Show"
Can’t you just hear Kermit singing
"Your so lovely" to Piggy?
Pseudolus - Fozzy Bear
Marcus Lycus - The Great Gonzo
Girls of the House of Lycus - Camilla and the chickens
Erronius - Dr. Bunsen Honeydew (and Beaker!)
Hero - Kermit the Frog
Hysterium - Rizzo The Rat
Philia - Miss Piggy
Senex - Dr. Teeth
Domina - Janice
Captain Miles Gloriosus - Sam the Eagle
The pain...oh the pain.
Till next time,
Be mindful and awake
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