I Can Call You Names, But How Dare You Do That To Me

I love when people talk about the freedom of speech. It's wonderful that you can say whatever you want, isn't it? The one thing that you have to remember is that it works both ways. People will attack you for what you have to say.

It is not my intention for this blog to be politically related at all. There are far more interesting things for me to write about and there are enough television channels dedicated to the matter of politics. But today we are going to talk about certain participants in the recent moveon.org awards show in NYC.

There were two entries that were saying that George Bush was a modern day Hitler. That is not what I am writing about. I am writing about the behavior of Margaret Cho, the popular Korean-American comedienne and the bald, attention grabbing musician Moby. These two people are mistakenly under the impression that it's alright to insult someone, but it's wrong for fans or followers of the person they insult to in turn insult them back.

Moby is blaming President Bush and Matt Drudge for the hateful and racist emails that Margaret Cho has received after her blistering comedic tirade against the sitting president. He claims that Matt Drudge took what Cho said out of context, despite the fact that Drudge printed what Cho said word for word. This, in my opinion, is outlandishly stupid behavior by both Moby and Cho.

I want to make it abundantly clear that I enjoy the comedic stylings of Margaret Cho, the music of Moby, and I do not belong to any political party and cannot vote in the USA. However, I know that you cannot insult someone, especially a popular person like a president, and not expect to be insulted in return.

This is a simple case of whiners and troublemakers being able to dish it out and not being able to take it. Rather than just suck it up, they go on and attack the Republicans and the president even further. Cho refers to George W. Bush as Dumya on her own web site. I believe Matt Drudge said it best, "Those E-mails are mild compared to what I receive on a daily basis. That is the nature of the Internet. Moby and his friends just have to 'butch up."

Beware of Bulletproof, Killer Dog

I have taken a break from the creative outlets. I have just recently restrung the Les Paul and it sounds amazing. However, I have no desire to play guitar right now. I have reached a temporary stopping point with the script as I am thinking about whether or not I want the next scene in my head to be the next scene in the movie. I have thought of other actors and songs that I do want to bring it to life on the screen and I firmly believe that people will be very happy with the choices.

One of my best friends contacted me from the frozen tundra of NYC and asked if I would be interested in taking care of his boss' sister's pitbull. This is the following correspondence:

"Yo! My boss asked me about you last night. Her sister has a pit bull that she needs taken care of for a while. Kate new[sic] you lived in the Tampa area and was curious to know if you would be interested in taking care of her. The dog is apparently very calm and nice unlike a traditional pit bull. I thought I would write if you were interested or not let me know. Good talking to you last night by the way.
Have Fun,
Tim"

My response:

Dear Tim,

I will not be able to take care of a dog that, as of yet, has not chewed a child's face off. I detest pit bulls with extreme passion as they are horrible animals, despite what their owners say. There is also the matter of fleas and having to take it outside to dump and picking the poo up. I don't like my own poo, let alone those from a child eating mammal. Oh, look. A little hand.

He really didn't have a reply for that response. When I was reading the news a couple of days later, I came across this article on local6.com, an Orlando newschannel web site:

"Authorities are still searching Jan 19 for the owner of a pit bull terrier that attacked two women and a man in Orange County, Fla., and survived being shot in the head, according to Local 6 News. The women were walking in a neighborhood on Lee Avenue off Orange Blossom Trail when they were attacked. Someone shot the dog in head but the dog survived and attacked another man in the area before being caught."

I think I made the right decision. Bulletproof, killer dogs are not welcome at Casa Grinch.

The song that I cannot get enough of is Special Needs by Placebo. If you look at the lyrics, it's kind of funny how they talk about getting a movie deal. I have found the perfect scene in the movie to use this wonderful song. Give it a listen and if you have Winamp, the video for it is available in the videos section of the Winamp site.

I Am MacGuyver

I spent last night with one of my oldest friends and his adorable baby daughter. It's nice to see that he has a natural ease with this newborn. I can only imagine which of his wild traits she has inherited.

We had fun watching Bruce Almighty, eating some pizza, and drinking some beers. He resides in a rather tony neighborhood on the other side of town from where I live. Everything is upscale with rather posh shops actually located in the community itself. He says Starbucks is a great place to people watch.

On the way home I stopped off to buy some milk. I wouldn't be able to start my day off right without my better tasting, Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch. I bought my milk without incident and drove the short distance to stately Grinch Manor. I put my key in the recently stiffening deadbolt and that's when the key snapped off in the lock.

It was 2AM and I had better things to do with my time. I set my milk down and took a closer look at the lock. What I needed were some needle nose pliers and a flathead screwdriver. Fortunately for me, these tools could be found in the trunk of my car.

I looked around my car emergency kit and easily found the screwdriver I needed, but I had only regular pliers. I used the flathead to turn the deadbolt the rest of the way, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not extricate the broken portion of the key from the lock. It was at this point that I decided to take a little break and check my mail.

The only mail I had was from my bank and it was telling me what I great idea it would be to open a new account with them. I didn't enjoy the prospect of having to spend the night in my car or driving down South and spending the night at my Dad's. I started to think of what MacGuyver would do.

The answer was simple - use a credit card for the bottom lock. I thought to myself that there was no way that it could be so easy to jimmy the lock. I made my way to the door after having a swig of the fat free T.G. Lee to steady my nerves. I did not want to damage any of my real credit/debit cards so I whipped out my expired Sam's card. I stuck it in the crevice where the bolt would be, pressed forward, and the door just popped open. There is nothing like the sweet taste of victory.

Now I am sitting here after my sojourn to the office with my interesting tale. I am awaiting the arrival of the maintenance man to replace my dearly departed deadbolt. The lady in the office gave me a backup key, but I just had to be MacGuyver one more time. The thrill never ends.

Welcome to Cell Phone Hell

I love watching the T-Mobile commercial about bringing your wireless number over to them. This way you won't have to call all your contacts and let them know that you have a new number. They make it seem like it's so easy and you'll be so glad that you did. My experience with this was a six week ordeal.

I had grown weary of using AT&T wireless as my cell phone had become rather antiquated, but more importantly, I hated my reception. So, I did the research and found that T-Mobile had the best prices. Not only would I have more minutes, free accessories, and the all important no digital roaming nationwide, but I would also get a free phone. There was a $35 activation fee, but that cost was offset by the number of accessories(leather case, extra faceplate, car charger, and belt clip).I contacted T-Mobile and got the ball rolling. Boy, was I excited.

My package finally arrived from T-Mobile and it contained all the goodies as promised.
I installed the SIM card and awaited the text message confirming that my old cell phone number had been ported. That message didn't arrive like it was supposed to. That's when I called T-Mobile for the first time.

The customer care consultant apologized and checked the records to see what was going on. The consultant explained that I needed to give it another day and it should work. So, I gave it another day.

I gave it two days and there was no text message. I called T-Mobile back and talked to another customer care consultant. This one was more helpful than the first because they gave me a temporary phone number to use while waiting for my old one to get switched over. They went on to say that it might take a week to ten days for the whole process to go through. I thanked them and the clock began anew.

While waiting for the port to complete. AT&T Wireless was on the news due to the sheer number of people who were in the same boat that I was in. The process is supposed to take a few hours at the most and there were people who had been waiting for over a week. The FCC was taking a large number of complaints and asking AT&T what exactly was going on. This was not encouraging to me.

So, that time came and went with no change. I made my third call to T-Mobile and asked what exactly was happening. They said that process had begun, completed, and then started again. It had looped twice. They apologized and told me they would waive my activation fee. I thought that was fair enough. I got a call with an automated message the following day apologizing and announcing my activation fee would be waived.

I gave it some more time. I now had two cell phones with two different numbers. The new one had remarkable clarity over the other. It was also smaller, had more features, and a color screen. I would play the bowling game in it to pass the time and to use up the last amount of energy when the battery was dying. I figured I'd give T-Mobile another week. My AT&T bill arrived.

Yes, that's right. My AT&T bill arrived. When you are porting a number, you cannot close the account of the number you are porting. I had to call T-Mobile about this as their deal was about to cost me money, since I would have to pay their bill as well. I let another week go by and told them of my situation. They said that they would credit my account because of the difficulties they were experiencing. A trouble ticket with T-Mobile can take up to two weeks to be closed.

I was now unhappy with my situation. At this point, I do not know how many times I have called T-Mobile. I had even called AT&T to see if they could shed any light on the situation and they couldn't. I gave T-Mobile another week to see what would happen.

Enough time had gone by now at this point that I had received yet another bill from AT&T. It had all become a blur of numerous calls, long waiting times, and no one knowing what was going on. It was time to throw in the towel.

I called T-Mobile and I got a rather nice gentleman in the number porting department. He did so much to try and get the number ported, even going so far as to contact AT&T, but gave me some rather interesting news. There was a file that contained information on porting my number that couldn't be opened. I asked who could open it and he had no idea.

At this point, I had enough of this endeavor. I thanked him for his help and told him to close all porting requests. He apologized and transferred me to customer service. I told the customer care consultant my plight and that I had received my first paper bill with none of the credits on it. She credited my account and I told her that the same thing would have to be done next month as I was calling in the middle of the month.

Upon the conclusion of that call, I contacted AT&T to tell them to close my account. I explained the situation to the consultant there and demanded my account be credited. They offered to transfer me to their number porting departmen which I subsequently declined. Since I was an AT&T customer for seven years and hoped that at some point I would switch back, she credited my account and pro-rated it for the current month.

I cannot say how many other people experienced the number porting nightmare that I did, but this system they have in place now sucks. I never want to go throught this experience again and if I can say anything to you all, it's just go ahead and get the new cell number. I still have to call T-Mobile one more time and hope I never have to talk to them again. Their service here in my area is awesome, though.

The Passionate Neighbor

I don't know what to make of my neighbor downstairs. She's a middleaged Latin lady and I think she works for an airline. Whenever I see her, she's all dolled up like a model at a photo shoot. She's pretty and like me, keeps to herself. She is a sex freak.

I keep rather odd hours. I don't go to sleep at the same time every night and I am usually up rather late. I was in bed last night at about 3AM when I heard it - the sound of passion. You see, my neighbor downstairs is a screamer. But, as a bonus, she's a screamer with a sex schedule the same as my sleep schedule.

There's really nothing like laying in your warm bed, listening to the sound of your neighbor calling her lover "Papi" as her headboard bangs out a primal rhythm on the wall. The lady and her lover, a rather beefy man, if it's the same guy I have seen leaving her apartment, have a lot of stamina. They were going at it for some time and there was a command performance at 11AM this morning. Do they not work?

Oh well. It does make for nontraditional entertainment and it's free. I look forward to seeing how many times they can go as I sit here at my desk alternately writing the script, emails, and this blog.

Creative Writing & Ultimate Home Theatre Sound

So, the movie script is just chugging right along. Having never written one before, I had to look around on the Internet to see what would be the proper format and to get an idea of about how long a motion picture script is. Thank goodness for the Rushmore site with its downloadable script.

I have told a few people that I'm writing a script and the usual reaction is one of no reaction at all. Jason is excited and my two other best friends, Jason and Matt like the idea. Tim was nice enough to compliment me on my writing talent from the things that he has seen in the past. I really appreciated that.

It seems that there are two jobs that I'm definitely going for. One pays a lot of money and the other is something that I'm already quite familiar with. I will go after both with equal vigor to see what happens.

Being unemployed has some perks but I'd rather be doing something that takes advantage of my talents. I know that my car is not going to be around much longer. My dream car is just sitting out there or is in some talented engineer's mind waiting to be created. It seems that by the time I get a real job is close to when the car will actually be in production and I will be able to afford it.

A home theatre is truly something to be had. My home theatre was just recently completed and I am truly happy with the results. My only regret is that I don't live far enough away from people to fully appreciate the dynamic sound. So far, my Lord of the Rings DVD has the best sound with a shootout scene from Ronin coming in second. Whenever I play a movie there is the lingering fear that the police will be knocking on my door.

Jobless But Not Taskless

So, I'm without employment again. I got a business card from one of the customers that I met. He is the president of some marketing company and I'll just have to see if there is anything that he can do.

In the meantime, I have come up with a new creative writing idea. I had joked in the past about a movie about my continuing adventures with Jason. Well, I have come up with an idea for a movie script. I have developed the whole story and now with my free time I can get to work on writing the script. It may amount to nothing or could lead to fortune and fame. It seems that the traditional routes to success are not open to me and I will have to blaze my own path.

I found this great quote while reading about a certain comedienne/actress:

"Many people feel that mass acceptance and smooth socialization are desirable life paths for a young adult... Many people are often wrong... Don't bother being nice. Being popular and well liked is not in your best interest. Let me be more clear; if you behave in a manner pleasing to most, then you are probably doing something wrong. The masses have never been arbiters of the sublime, and they often fail to recognize the truly great individual. Taking into account the public's regrettable lack of taste, it is incumbent upon you not to fit in."
-Janeane Garofalo