Thursday, August 26, 2004

 
I'm getting married

This Sunday.

No shit.

Send me money.


posted by Tim 7:34 PM

Sunday, August 22, 2004

 
Here's one more asshole you can stop defending.

Along with McCain who, although as a man I don't doubt he's stand-up all the way, always caves in when it comes to politics and always plays the good soldier no matter how much he obviously feels something has crossed the line into the absurd, ya'll can stop ever saying anything decent about Bob Dole:

Former Republican Sen. Bob Dole suggested Sunday that John Kerry (news - web sites) apologize for past testimony before Congress about alleged atrocities during the Vietnam War and joined critics of the Democratic presidential candidate who say he received an early exit from combat for "superficial wounds."

...
Dole told CNN's "Late Edition" that he warned Kerry months ago about going "too far" and that the Democrat may have himself to blame for the current situation, in which polls show him losing support among veterans.

"One day he's saying that we were shooting civilians, cutting off their ears, cutting off their heads, throwing away his medals or his ribbons," Dole said. "The next day he's standing there, `I want to be president because I'm a Vietnam veteran.' Maybe he should apologize to all the other 2.5 million veterans who served. He wasn't the only one in Vietnam," said Dole, whose World War II wounds left him without the use of his right arm.

Dole added: "And here's, you know, a good guy, a good friend. I respect his record. But three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean, they're all superficial wounds. Three Purple Hearts and you're out."

This seems to be the rule of thumb: Across the board Republican politicians only care about power, so no matter how great a guy or gal any one of them might be as a person, they nevertheless suck ass.

I love that Bob Dole thinks 35 years ago and today are just "one day" and "the next day". How far back can one go in someone's life and still reference it as just the other day?

One day Bob Dole's suckling on his mother's breast and shitting his pants and the next day he's popping viagra and criticizing John Kerry.

Is that fair?


Keep it up, you morons. It's great to see your true colors shining though a' la Cyndie Lauper.

posted by Tim 9:20 PM

Sunday, August 08, 2004

 
It's funny because it's sad

You know as much anxiety that I have over my job, it's still the best job I ever had.

Yes. That's means I've neveer had a cool job. Worked with cool people before but never had a job I really liked. Chipes... I'm following in the old man's footsteps. Crap.


posted by Tim 1:50 PM

Friday, August 06, 2004

 
I'm gonna get fired.

I just know it.

Today a dude got fired, different department, but the guy who told me was telling me part of it was his attitude, like he was a grumpy gus and that was part of it, and he was telling me like, you know, wink, wink, your ass is on the block for the same reason.

This guy may just be trying to rile things up, he does that, but the fact is I'm the office freak. I don't talk to anyone, I'm never cheerful, I never have anything to say. Why? Well as for not talking to anyone, I work with a bunch of brokers who only talk about sports and money. I don't give much of a shit about either. They're salesmen, calling up old people and brow-beating them into buying shit, and that's not my bag. I just don't have anything in common with any of them, I don't have anything in common with anyone else, really, and in general I never know how to do standard-protocal small talk.

You might think I'm trying to be cool somehow by claiming I don't know how to do small talk, like I'm above bland pleasantries. No. I simply can't do it. I don't know how and let me tell you, my life would be much better served if I could just fucking do the standard bullshit office talk bullshit. I'm just missing a gene or something.

Oh yeah, most everyone there is pretty right-wing as well.

I'm never cheerful because I hate my job. I hate my job because I don't do anything. I don't do anything because I have nothing to do and my boss is the worst manager in the world. He's a real nice guy, but he is absolutely terrible at managing my time and his own time. Consequently, I'm vastly underutilized and don't do anything all day and that basically puts me into a zombie stupor. My general disposition is that of amiably not giving a shit, which is fine, but put me in a job for 3 years where I don't do anything, can't really move ahead on my own, and am fully aware I'm smarter than 75% of the guys working there... I don't stay very cheerful.

I never have anything to say because I'm a fucking zombie who just wants to go home.

You might be thinking of all this wonderful advice and what-not, something that starts with "maybe you should-", well save it. It's a unique situation and there's not much I can do about it. Yeah, I'm gonna try to be a little more "cheerful" until I get my ass canned, but I'm sort of stuck.

I spent a couple weeks formulating a plan to add a whole new department to our company, one that would tap into an underserved, rapidly expanding market. I wrote it up in a proposal, gave it to my boss, made some changes and-- he's been sitting on it for nearly 7 weeks.

Even when I'm really proactive shit doesn't change. Every yearly review I have with my boss I beg him to put me to better use, to give me more responsibility, teach me how to fish kind of bullshit. Every year it's the same thing-- nothing changes. and then when something does, like he'll pass something on to me- you see he's a real anal micro-manager who has to do everything himself- more often than not all that happens is I find out the entire thing, whatever it is, is a complete waste of time. Either that or it's so incredibly, stupidly simple he could have gave it to me on day one and it only adds 5 minutes a week to my work load. He's a terrible manager and he's making my job experience hell. But he's a good guy.

I can't even really get along with him at work though because I'm just so fucking out of it, and so constantly embittered about having nothing to do and no real responsibilities and therefore job security. It's an esoteric business and unless I become a successful salesman I'll have to rely upon my boss to advance my position. and I'm not going to be a successful salesman. I just don't have it in me.

Hopefully my ass isn't on the line but the fact is I wouldn't be surprised. I'm a fucking mope at work. I can't help it though. it sucks and it just sucks the life out of me to sit in front of the computer and do nothing all day.

p.s.- The guy who got fired, I always considered him a real asshole. Not just a grumpy gus but a dick. Also, you couldn't understand a fucking word he said. He was from South America somewhere, a black guy, and it wasn't really an accent but he slurred his words so bad he made Fenster from The Usual Suspects sound eloquent. Anyway...

How do you fake cheerfulness?

posted by Tim 9:34 PM

Thursday, August 05, 2004

 
OK, OK... He's just an idiot.

Our president, ladies and gentlemen:

He said he's only going to raise the tax on the so-called rich. But you know how the rich is, they've got accountants. That means you pay. That means your small business pays. It means the farmers and ranchers pay. That's the wrong medicine for this economy, and we're not going to let him prescribe it.

The stupidity pretty much speaks for itself, but if for some reason you don't get it, here it is:

First of all, is he pretending he and his entire administration's heads aren't rich?

Anyway, he's implying something about rich people, something negative. Mainly, even if you raise taxes on them, they will buy their way out of them. "But you know how the rich is..." You don't say "But you know how the [demographic], are" unless it's a negative connotation. So the president, himself a rich man, a proscriber to "trickle-down" economics, from a party whose base is rich people is telling you rich people are tricky weasels who will just as soon get an accountant and transfer their tax load to you as look at ya'.

Bizarre.

He's also saying there's nothing you can do about rich people shrugging off their taxes. They've got accountants, taxation can be avoided by them.

I can't imagine what a Republican who makes 25K a year would think listening to this. Would they agree? If so, is that a negative? I mean, Bush could just as easily had said the above and then said "we're going to make sure rich people can't buy out of their taxes", right? If it's a negative thing, this weaseling out of taxes, why is the most powerful man in the nation rolling over and telling his people there's nothing that can be done about it?

Listen, there's just so many layers of weirdness to that statement. It makes no sense on any level. I mean, he's talking liberal's language. If he said "rich people can afford to get out of taxes and that's not fair to you, those who cannot afford to do so", he'd be speaking pure liberalease.

Part of what he said is true: the wealthy can afford to shelter their income, the poor and middle class cannot. But implying there's nothing that can be done about it, or that it means there's no point to raising taxes on the rich, or that tax shelters for the rich's income means more income taxes for middle-class people without any actual increases in middle-class income tax rates- that's all a load of rainbow colored horseshit.

But the most fucked up thing about this is the Republican tax strategy further entrenches exactly what he's essentially complaining about. By lowering taxes on investments and concentrating on use and income taxes, Republicans knowingly make it much, much easier for the rich to get richer and much, much harder for the poor and middle-class to move up.

Because, as the boy-king states, the rich can afford to get out of income taxes. How? Well shit, pardner, via lower taxation on investment income which Bush and the Republican congress puched through. A more accurate sound bite would have been:

"But you know the rich. I've made it much easier for them to make money via investments and other unearned income, so if their income tax rates go up, they're not gonna' feel it."


posted by Tim 6:28 PM