The Pussification of America

First, read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/18/magazine/18wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Take it with a grain of salt, because after all, it's funny. Then think about it. Then it's not funny. It's tragic. It's tragic because it's a perfect, living example of the pussification of America. You want to see why America churns out so many mal-adjusted, sissy kids who immediately try to shift the blame of all of life's problems to somebody else? This is why. Society is so afraid to send the wrong message to kids that ultimately what has happened is that we send them no message at all. Kids grow up in this little utopian bubble, totally oblivious to issues that effect people every day... issues like dealing with mistakes (yours and other people's), unfair situations, and competition. When that bubble bursts and kids are thrown out into the real world, they are not properly equipped to handle the stresses and struggles of life. When I grew up, I learned the value of taking chances, as well as learning when not to take them. I learned that failure is a necessary part of life, and that failure is what motivates you to suceed. I also learned that competition is vitally important, because if you're not better than your peers in what you're trying to accomplish, you're not going to accomplish it. When you're competing with 20 other guys for a single job, like it or not, not everybody is a winner! Not only do you need to know how to deal with losing, you need to learn how to win. Someday you're going to be put into a position where you have some hard decisions to make. It starts pretty early in life, when you start dealing with the pressures from your peers, including making huge decisions about smoking, drugs, drinking, sex, and all kinds of misbehaviors. How do you expect kids to react to these very important issues if they grow up in a bubble where these kinds of problems are swept under the rug? If you constantly shield your kids from this stuff, your kids aren't going to be prepared to make these decisions when they're forced to.

It's about time we get back to reality. Kids need to see that the world isn't perfect, and that they will always have to make the best of it, and that starts by taking accountability and making your own opportunities, instead of worrying about what kind of roll model Big Bird is. Anybody who thinks that Snuffleupagus is responsible for children's problems should have taken the blue pill. In fact, maybe they should do the world a favor and take the whole bottle.

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, GET OFF THE FUCKING ROAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Every year the first "real" snow of the year is a cluster-fuck, because all of the boneheaded idiot drivers somehow forget how to drive in it over the summer months. The minute they see a snowflake, they freak out and bring traffic to a standstill. I could understand this incompetence farther south where driving in the snow is an uncommon event, but if you live in Berkshire county, then God dammit, learn how to drive in it!!!!!!!!!! My ride to work usually takes 45 minutes, but an hour isn't all that uncommon during bad weather. It's the same routine every time. Black wet roads, and idiots that still insist on doing 35. When the roads actually are slippery (10% of the time), I don't get upset at the slow ride, but today brought an entirely new level of idiot out of their houses and on to the road. My ride took an hour and a half, and for about half of the ride, it was a 5 mph tapdance of stop and go. The goddamned roads weren't even that bad! On harbor hill, which tends to be slippery, it was a parking lot. Nobody was moving, and I saw flashers all over the place. There were a lot of cars pulled over to the side of the road, either stuck or just too scared to drive. I still have the summer tires on the Camry, and I had absolutely no problems stopping and going up the hill. The stop & go continued for 15 more miles all the way into Pittsfield, even though the rest of the ride is flat and mostly straight.

The other bulk of my wait was waiting for timid women to pull out of the goddamned intersections even though nothing's coming for 2 miles!

I think I bent my steering wheel from pounding on it so hard.

God Dammit I hate stupid people.

I like Beer in a glass

I've always drank my beer out of a bottle (or can when I like to live up to my redneck reputation). I always thought that pouring your beer into a glass was for sissies and people who give a shit about etiquette (who, by their nature, are usually sissies). Unfortunately, this foundation upon which my entire beer drinking redneck viewpoint was based on has been shaken to its core recently. When Kristin and I were at the Budweiser brewery, I was blown away by the aroma in the fermentation room during the tour. It was an amazing blend of sweet and bitter beer aromas that made me want to tap one of those giant tanks open and chug right from the nozzle. After the tour I was able to enjoy a fresh draft beer, and I was clearly able to notice a less powerful version of that same wonderful aroma coming from the beer in my glass. Why hadn't I ever noticed this before!? Oh yeah... I always drank out of cans and bottles, which don't let the aroma escape.

So now I pour my beer into a glass. I enjoy my beer quite a bit more now. It smells better, which makes it taste better. It also helps get rid of a lot of the carbonation, so it drinks easier... more like a draft beer. And that's the thing... beer out of a can or bottle tastes a hell of a lot more like it does on draft when I pour it into a glass first.

So next time you see me pour my beer in a glass, rest assured that I haven't turned into some sort of tea-drinking tinker-bell, but in fact I've found a way to take my Man drink to an entirely new level of manly goodness.

The Eagles - Again

So it's been a week since I bought the new Eagles album. When I first got the album I spent the time to post my feelings on every song. I see from my site meter that virtually nobody read it. That being the case, chances are pretty good that nobody will read this one either. Anyway... after a week, I have to say that my overall opinion of the album has changed. I've listened to it almost every day at work, and that proved to be the right environment to get acclimated to it. My biggest complaints with the album were that the lyrics are too hippie-pinko for my tastes, and the music was a tad bland. When I listen to tunes at work, I don't really pay attention to them, as they're just a way of reducing other audible distractions (like having a fan on when you sleep). After listening to the album this way over and over, I've become very familiar with the music, and have largely ignored the lyrics. In doing this, I've found that I've become very fond of the album. It's still not ever going to match the quality of their older stuff, but it is an album that I expect to keep in my rotation for a long time to come.