20 posts tagged “rant”

Perhaps this post represents a failure on my own personal behalf. Sort of like that art teacher I had in high school, who remarked, "these are all great paintings that we're studying. If you don't like them, it says more about you than it does about the work."

Bleh. Just because something is good doesn't mean I have to like it. For example, many people consider that golf is a good sport, birds are good pets, and lobster is a good food. I do not enjoy any of these things, and the last item in particular (the lobster) would kill me if I followed the logic to its conclusion. What were we talking about?

Oh, right, Watchmen.

I really did not enjoy this movie, which was a shame, because  I -wanted- to like it. I think Zach Snyder is awesome and more than anything, I love movies that manage to be both smart and entertaining at the same time. And really, there isn't a particular complaint I can level at the movie, some defined and perceivable standard that made it a failure to me. All of the pieces, the individual gears, everything was working correctly, all the little bits were in sync, but the overall product was just not good. It was boring.

No, I didn't read the book. I don't think that movies should have required reading. I didn't read V for Vendetta before I saw it; in fact, I actually went and picked up the book after watching the movie. I didn't read 300. I haven't read more than a handful of Batman comics. That didn't stop me from enjoying any of those movies; in fact, I actually prefer the movie version of V for Vendetta far more than the book. Every change they made to the film made it a better story.

I'm not a stupid viewer. I don't need explosions and fisticuffs-a-minute to keep me amused, to keep my attention on the screen. The fact that I even know that "fisticuffs" is a word should be indicative of this! It's not that I didn't "get" Watchmen. It's not that I didn't "understand" the point. I got it. I understood it.

I just didn't fucking care.

With the exception of Rorschach, I didn't feel any connection with any of the characters. It's not that they were badly written; they were actually very well written, very believable characters full of flaws and personalities, which is what I believe is the entire point of the film, the whole commentary and deconstruction of the superhero mythos and persona.  My problem wasn't that they were bad characters; it's that I really didn't care about the people they were supposed to be. Manhattan, in particular, irritated the hell out of me. His philosophy pissed me off, his attitude grated my nerves and just about everything else about him made me just grit my teeth.

There were a few amusing moments, most notable among them being that one quote from Rorschach ("I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me!") But overall, I felt that the film was boring, slow, and uncharismatic, all of which was not the product of bad acting, bad script or bad anything. The problem was that the story created a cast of characters (again, excluding Rorschach) who I did not care about, because they were boring and uninteresting people. And that makes it very hard for me to care about your problems, for me to value the message in your world, when I do not care about it.

Which is a real shame, because I wanted to like it. I wanted to like it very, very badly.

But I just didn't care.

Overall, I would say that life in my particular apartment has been good. The new roommate situation is great, we get along well (and fight considerably less than I did with my brother, as brothers are wont to do) and we usually have food that is not also cardboard.

However, there are, creeping like little imps in the dark of a night, a handful of problems that, in aggregate, have begun to test my resolve and my sanity.

The first problem is one of our neighbors.

Now, I do not consider myself to be unreasonable, with unrealistic expectations about the noise level that comes when you cram multiple people into a relatively-speaking small space. I know that, during certain parts that involve certain LANs, I make my own share of noise. I do not expect perfect silence or I would have moved into a retirement community, where the only noise is the occasional ambulance as it ferries the latest recruit into the ranks of the recently deceased.

But this neighbors, these individuals, for lack of a better term, have crossed the line in ways that defy the very act of line-making. As you may expect, they play music. Loudly. Often. In fact, it's been going on three days now, morning till evening, that the same two or three songs (from what I can tell) have been on repeat. What is especially irritating about this music though is that the only thing that reaches our apartment is the bass. They're a good two apartments over from ours, still in the same unit, but we can -feel- their fucking bass pulsing like some sort of Cthulian heart, inexorable and undeniable. I -feel- their fucking music in my teeth at all hours.

I'm not yet certain whether fire or complaining is the proper response. On the one hand, I have experience with fire! I can state with nigh-authority that if you expose a person's dwelling to fire, you will increase their chances of needing to leave said dwelling! However, the fact that fire is capricious and impolite, like some dogs once unchained, tempers my desire to employ its usage in this endeavor. My own fire could very easily also force -me- to have to move, and if the fire wants to be a real dick about it, burn down all of my stuff in the process.

This is bad. I happen to be very fond of my stuff. At this point, I've pretty much told the fire, "look, I'll call you" and resigned myself to other options, like complaining to the management.

Which brings me, incidentally, to my next point. My roof is leaking. Again. In almost the exact same spot in was leaking last time. Expect that the leak has thoughtfully moved about a foot to the right of the previous one, so that instead of leaking on top of my desk, it is now leaking ON TOP OF MY FUCKING COMPUTER.

You have never seen a man so consumed by hatred, rage and impotent despair, as when you see a writer whose laptop has been placed in a puddle. The only reason I still -have- a functional computer is that I'm in the habit of closing the screen whenever it's not in use, something I never used to do, until I realized that my cat likes to sleep on my desk sometimes, and I'd rather not having her sleep directly on my keyboard. I've already have to replace the fucking thing once.

So, at the moment, my apartment is both hazardous to my stuff (which I cherish) and filled with the steady, rhythmical vibrations that constitute the typical cry of the Southwestern Spotted Ass-hat, a rare and endangered species of fuckwad that are in danger of being purged in fire. By me.

Fucking people.

If you're still reading at this point, yes, I feel better now.

I don't want to be writing an essay. I want to be in this chair, certainly, for this is my desk, my refuge and sanctuary, my perch from which I create and crawl through worlds that do not exist. I want the music around me, because it pleases me, because I fade in and out of it and though I did not create the composition, in this fragment of life, it seems to exist only for me. I want the bottle next to me, because I like it.

But I do not want this essay.

I could be writing stories. I could be making something. But instead, my precious time is wasted.

This is supposed to be my major, the whole point in spending so much money on a formal education. And yet, due to the brilliance of a "require course," I can't help but feel, at this moment, as though the entire charade were nothing more than a brilliant, glittering waste of my time, effort, and energy.

So, it’s been a few weeks now since the initial surprise of the McCain VP pick. We’ve had an opportunity to see Palin speak on the national level (although, surprisingly, no open press conferences, hmm.) Thus far, the question has been asked, again and again; what makes Sarah Palin ready to be a heartbeat away from the presidency?

This is a very important question. Some have cried foul that Palin is getting an unfair amount of criticism about her readiness for office. What has Dick Cheney done in the last eight years, except cap a bitch with a shottie and remind us why we used to believe as kids that there are monsters under our beds waiting to eat us and our families. That’s right, nothing. Except get rich, maybe. Richer. Whatever.

But I digress. Conservatives have loudly and proudly proclaimed in response to questions regarding Sarah Palin’s experience credentials with some variation of “I’d rather have inexperience at the bottom of my ticket than at the top.” Uh huh. Here’s what I would like to remind those who have rallied around the “Leave Sarah alone!” defense; McCain is OLD. And I don’t mean like he listens-to-records-old, or walked-fifteen-miles-to-school-uphill-both-ways-in-the-snow-old. I mean he’s probably-going-to-croak-in-the-next-few-years old, Can’t-remember-what-day-or-what-year-it-is old. That’s really, really old.

Do you know what the average life expectancy of your typical American male is? It’s somewhere around 75 years or so.

John McCain is 72. He has had cancer, what, three times? I’d check on Wikipedia, but reality by consensus is notoriously unreliable and besides, I don’t let facts stop me from making a point.

My own grandfather, a healthy man by all accounts outside of struggles with diabetes, died at 72. And he wasn’t running for President, which, by all accounts, is one of the most stressful and intense jobs imaginable. Consider how young (relatively speaking) Bush looked at the start of his term, compared to now. The job drains you. It ages you.

So when I point out that John McCain really is an old guy and not with the best bill of health, I point that out because, unlike his opponent, there is a very realistic chance that he may expire in office. Certainly nothing is set in stone, and the fact that Barack Obama is younger than his opponent does not make Obama immortal. But let’s be realistic here; Sarah Palin stands a much better chance of inheriting the top office than Joe Biden does.

This is why she is being grilled on her readiness. Because we want to know who stands to inherit our vote, and make no mistake, every single person who votes for John McCain is also voting for the chance of a Palin presidency. She won’t be the understudy at that point, learning beside her veteran politician. It’ll just be her, the little circle of Washington insiders around her, and the world.

You are probably wondering at this point when I am going to actually get to the point, which is the title of this satire; why I, Matthew Ciarvella, a student, library clerk and lazy writer, am more qualified to be vice president than Sarah Palin. Let’s talk about the facts. Well, the fact. There's only one.

The fact is, Sarah Palin is running on what I like to call the “no blinking” platform. She didn’t blink when John McCain asked her to be his running mate; we have all heard this many, many times by now. I also think she doesn’t blink as often as most people, which I have unscientifically measured by enslaving children and forcing them to count the number of times she blinks during her interviews and speeches. My numbers have a wide margin of error, however, as they might have blinked a few times and missed her blinks; also, children are dumb, easily distracted, and most cannot count above 10. Again, I digress.

This lack of blinking is Palin’s benchmark of executive readiness. She’s ready because she’s not a blinker (this probably means she doesn’t signal before changing lines on the highway, another sign of aggressive leadership. At least, that’s what I choose to believe every time somebody gives me a proud “you’re number one” gesture with their middle finger.)

But Palin DOES blink. There’s no denying it. She might be a reduced blinker, she might not blink except when she really, really needs to, but the fact is, she still blinks, just like the rest of you mortals. She just doesn’t blink as often.

This, my loyal reader, is why you should be penciling in MY name on the ballot come November, not Sarah’s.

Most of you have been to an eye examination at least once in your life. If, like me, you wear glasses, you have to do this repeatedly every so often, because you did something stupid like fell asleep on your glasses and cracked them, or sneezed your contact lenses out of your head, or whatever.

Everybody who has taken an eye examination knows about that annoying little puff of air that they blow in your eye to test for glaucoma or herpes or some other horrifying disease. Privately, I like to think it’s done just because doctors want to test a harmless version of the Milgram experiment (that people are stupid and will do whatever somebody in a white coat tells them to do) and it’s funny to see how gullible patients are.

Doctor: “We’re going to blast air in your eyes.”
Patient: “Why? Is this going to tell you if my eyes are healthy or not?”
Doctor: “Sure.”

Well, get ready for a stunner, people. You may demand video proof. You may wish to subpoena my eye doctor.

I didn’t blink during the puff-of-air test.

In fact, I haven’t blinked....blank.... blunk? What the hell is the past tense for that word? Screw it, let’s move on.

I’ve been by my eye doctor that my personal fortitude is “uncanny.” That my lack of blinking during this critical test indicates superior moral fiber, strength of character and a willingness to make snap decisions without regard to reason, familiarity or even just knowing what the hell the decision is supposed to be about. I’ve been told by different eye doctors that I should be a general or a producer or even a politician.

I’m going to take their advice seriously now and throw my name in the ring for elected office. I know it’s late in the game, long past the primaries when crazy people were putting their names out there, but I think my platform is solid enough that you’ll consider my qualifications.

I can’t tell you what my positions are on any issues because I either don’t know, or don’t care.

I don’t know what a Bush Doctrine is; I didn’t even know Bush knew how to spell “doctrine.” If I was taking a test, I would probably answer something like “it is a doctrine enforced by the American Shrub Growers Association of America (ASGAA) to regulate the standard trimming and acceptable standards for hedges and other foliage.”

I’m not a hockey mom, but I do wear glasses, and I have a mom (and she’s a very nice lady) and one time I played hockey, although it was with rollarblades so it didn’t really count.

I think that guns are cool and Hollywood should have more of them; I think a Hollywood without guns would be really boring, because then how would they get the cars to explode unless they were able to shoot them in the tires?

I can’t see Russia from my house, but I did pull it up on Google Earth the other day. It seems nice, as far as Russias go.

And most of all, my fellow citizens, I. Do. Not. Blink.

Ever.

Not when somebody throws something at my face, not when a sadistic doctor blows a puff of air in my eye, not even when my contact lenses start to really hurt after several hours of this no blinking, like right now. I refuse to blink. I refuse to succumb.

Because when you blink? When you give in? You’re letting the terrorists win.

You’re letting Jesus down.

And somewhere in America, a bald eagle falls out of the sky.

I promise you; if you elect me for... hell, it doesn’t even have to be vice president, I’d be happy with a Senate seat or something. If you elect me, I promise I won’t blink. I promise I’ll not only not blink, but I’ll remove blinking from our schools, keeping blinking out of our marriages and civil unions, reduce the effects of global blinking on our environment, put an end to illegal immigrant blinking, defend the Supreme Court decision protecting a woman's right to blink, and ensure that foreign blinkers never threaten innocent, unblinking Americans with their dangerous eyelids every again. Also, I will give goggles and sunglasses to our brave troops, who every day are sent into harm's way in places where the sun is very bright and there is a lot of dust and the urge to blink is all but overpowering.

You may be wondering how I will accomplish all of these lofty goals. Aside from the goggles thing, I have a comprehensive proposal that I believe will eliminate the threat of blinking in America:

By crossbreeding our mediocre nation with snakes.

See? I’m all about reform, just like my opponents. But people like Sarah Palin are thinking too small. I’m not going to reform our schools or our government or our economy or our foreign policy. I’m going right to the source, right to the very building blocks of life, the magical substance called Deoxyribo-something-or-other-acid.

I vow to reform our DNA.

I’ll bring change to the genetic code and produce a glorious species of snake-men who will thwart all opposition to our great nation, by engaging them in staring contests for control of the free world.

So vote for me. Vote for the future of America, a future of hideous, mutant snake-people. Vote for true unblinking leadership. It's what America deserves.

I'm writing this more for my benefit than yours, but I'm glad you've decided to stop by and share the journey with me. Basically, I'm writing this from a class that I hate, one that I may or may not have talked about in the past. It's a terribly, terribly boring class and the professor (if he is one, I'm not exactly certain of the qualifications there) gives bullshit lectures with stupid, opinionated statements. It's impossible to discuss anything, both because his subject matter is always nebulous, unfocused and boring, and when you actually do have something to say, he pretty much says, "Well, no, you're wrong." Doesn't matter what you're saying. You could even be agreeing with him and you're still wrong. That's how fucked up this class is.

I gave up on the class a long time ago. Mostly, I just bring my laptop, where I'd try to take notes in between looking at websites. However, I've noticed recently that the notes I'd write down were becoming shorter and shorter, likely due to a combination of his nebulous bullshit and my own growing inattention to said bullshit. However, it occurred to me that since I supposedly bring a laptop with me to "type my notes," it might look suspicious if I have my laptop out but aren't actually typing anything. So, I need to type something, hence... here I am.

I was originally just going to make a post about something else, but I really couldn't think of anything to say. That's the problem with this new job; I've had way less bastard customers to deal with. In fact, I haven't really had any bad customers yet (operative word), aside from three stupid people that didn't give me a tip. Here's a hint: tip a delivery driver. I've had a few people tell me that drivers shouldn't be tipped for doing their job, to which I reply: any job with a variable level of performance deserves a tip. What do I mean by "variable performance?" Essentially, that's my term for the scenario in which the employee's level of speed, skill and dedication affects the product itself. If you're working a counter at GameStop, it really doesn't matter how good you are at much of anything, since really, all you're expected to do is punch the keys on the register and put the video game in a plastic bag. A waiter, on the other hand, is actually taking care of his customers, making sure their drinks are refilled, they get their food quickly, efficiently and correctly, etc. That's the difference between a sit-down restaurant and fast food. You're not just getting a meal, you are getting a meal that is served to you.

Now, the delivery driver: my job is to get the pizza to your door. That's my job and I earn a wage for doing that job. Why should you tip me? Simply put, I have a lot more control over your experience than you might realize. I don't have a manager riding along with me, overseeing me. My motivation for getting to your door quickly (so that your food is hot, and you're not waiting an hour for it) is the promise that I'll be rewarded for putting in the extra effort. I'll drive more quickly, plan my route, and generally do whatever I can to get your pizza there quickly because I know that's what you want. If I wasn't being motivated by the chance of a delicious 4-5 dollar tip, I'd be far less motivated to really "try." Money is motivation; my experience in retail taught me that I would get paid the same whether I tried or not. But in delivery, the harder I try, the more I get paid, thus, I try to do a better job. It's a great system... assuming people remember how it works. Because, I guarantee, if I wasn't getting tipped for most of my deliveries, there'd be a lot more "oops, I got lost" happening.

So, remember to tip your delivery driver. It's the fuel that makes the system work. If you don't like tipping people, then drive down here and get your own damn pizza. I get paid for washing dishes and making dough, too, which is what I'd rather be doing if you don't plan on tipping.

But that's a rant against... what, three people so far? Most people understand the system and I like them for it. It's pretty refreshing, actually, to no longer see customers as enemies that must be dealt with. I'm serious, that's how I'd view a customer walking into GameStop: an enemy, an opponent. Can I score a reserve off him/her? Is he/she going to be difficult? How long is this going to take? It was a battle to see what I could persuade them to do, in order to protect my precious cache of "store numbers." It was an evil, twisted system and I hated being apart of it, which is a real shame, because I enjoyed the idea of selling video games in the general sense. The problem was, my preferred M.O. is to be available to a customer, to help them find something if they need it, answer questions if they have them, and generally just make their shopping experience as smooth as possible. I was, and remain, a believer in the idea that a better shopping experience will create better sales. I don't shop at places that I've been harassed or annoyed. I avoid restaurants where it took an hour to get a cold meal. And I don't go to game stores that only care about the subscription and the reserve, rather than actually making a smooth transaction.

So, it's nice to actually be able to operate in a capacity that I actually agree with (making a better experience) and get rewarded (most of the time) for a superior performance. Hopefully, this idyllic little bubble won't shatter too quickly. Although, I wonder what I'll rant about if I don't have any stupid people or policies to deal with. I might just have to go back to talking about kittens and YouTube videos.

-Draxle

Posts on this blog (I still hate that word) seem to fall into one of several different categories: video game news, videos that I like, complaining about something shitty in my life, or writing/reading. I thought about writing more posts about how my cat likes to walk across my keyboard whenever I'm typing, but I decided the details were too special to share willingly. Those tender moments of combination annoyance-amusement shall be mine, and mine alone.

I'm not really sure where to fit this topic into my usual list, or if it marks the beginning of a brand new one. For those who start reading posts without glancing at the title, I'm going to talk about booze, a.k.a. alcohol, liquor, da hooch, etc.

I think it's pretty much assumed at this point that writers like to drink, assuming you could call it a matter of personal taste. That fact, however, really doesn't have anything to do with what I want to talk about. Whatever. It's 3:30 in the morning. I don't have to make sense at this hour.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I had my first experience with Southern Comfort, 100 proof. Are you reading this with me? 100 proof. That's a lot of fucking alcohol per ounce. Now, I'm not exactly a regular binge drinker like a certain girlfriend of mine (I only have one girlfriend, so you should be able to guess who I'm talking about. Honey, if you're reading this, uh... it's late at night and I'm drunk. Please don't kill me.) Where was I? Oh yes, I'm not exactly a heavy drinker, but I'm not a total neophyte either. I've had a couple of bad hangovers, but I'm pretty sure of my limits and generally, I know when it's time to stop. Unfortunately, when you're mixing Southern Comfort, you need to stop two or three drinks before you normally would.

You can see where this is going: that was the first time I ever drank so much I puked. I can still remember the experience of falling out of a chair and crawling on my hands and knees across my back porch to throw up in the dirt in my backyard. Urgh. Not fun, and the hangover the next day made me want to die, as hangovers often do. Now, here's the thing: I know that while you're hungover, the idea of drinking makes you never want to do so again. That feeling passes, however, when you recover. I still had some of the Southern Comfort left over after that night, just holding on to it for the future, and since I don't have anything better to do on a Saturday night, I figured I'd mix a drink or two and finish off the bottle. Poured the first drink, everything seemed cool. Then I took my first sip.

And, I swear to God, I almost threw up in my mouth. It's not that I don't like sweet drinks (Rum and Coke is my drink of choice, preferably with Vanilla Coke.) But oh my God, tasting the Southern Comfort brought back feelings of nausea and hangover and throwing up in the dirt. I tried to take another sip and I felt even worse... there was no way I was going to be able to finish that drink. I ended up pouring it in the sink. I don't know if I'll ever be able to drink something like that again; even smelling it makes me feel sick now. It's like a perpetual hangover-residue, etched into my body. Urgh.

Anybody else ever have an experience like this?

-Draxle

I've figured out why I don't work on my novel as much as I used to: it seems like every time I sit down at my computer to write something creative, there's an essay or research paper that I have to write instead, and those academic prospects inevitably crush the desire to write out of me for the duration of the experience. And even after the damn paper is written, it's usually too late at night for me to contemplate devoting an hour to my novel, so I end up just crawling into bed and crashing.

I will also state that I have been trying to keep to my reading promise, and while I've failed to even open the book on my "reading for pleasure" list, I've opened numerous other fascinating books on subjects such as educational reform and other exciting topics.

-Draxle

This is my blog, so I can whine about all the trivial shit that plagues me from day to day.

I have a headache right now. It feels like the same headache you get from a tremendous hangover, except that this hangover defied God and nature and mated with a cold, so it's not only a throbbing pain that makes every bright light and loud noise (which is to say the entirety of a college campus, which is where I am right now), it also means I have that lovely skull-pounding pressure that feels like my brain is going to explode outward through my nose and eyes.

Been like this since yesterday, and I've already started to become delusional. Is it possible that I've studied so much for my stupid classes that the information density of my brain has exceeded the carrying capacity of my skull? It certainly feels like it.

I have to go do a presentation now, for a subject I don't really care about, on a a paper I didn't do very well on, in a class that I really don't like.

-Draxle

Not a lot to talk about today. I don't know whether my inability to focus on my creative works is a result of overall laziness or if it might have something to do with the fact the college is crushing the creative juice out of me. I didn't think this was ever going to happen; I mean, I went to college so that I would write more, rather than sit around and play video games all day. But now, it seems like whenever I have even the remote interest to write, I'm usually sitting at my desk buried in so many procrastinated essays that by the time I'm done, it's so early in the morning it might not even be dark out. And that kind of frenzied, last minute writing really takes a number one one's mental health, not to mention makes the very act of sitting down to write something a painful torture.

On the other hand, I'm sitting here typing on this blog, whining about that unpleasant writing through, irony of ironies, more writing, so maybe I'm not so painfully afflicted as I like to imagine. Still, it'd be nice to have to write less bullshit essays and more, I don't know, poetry and fiction and whatever. You know, the creative things that a creative writing major actually does. Maybe I'm taking the wrong kinds of classes? I don't know.

I've noticed that my page view count seems to climb steadily, which makes me wonder if more people are reading this than I imagined. It's hard to tell, you know, it's not like I'm running a store where I can watch you come in and look around at the stuff, and then leave, a situation that leaves me secure in the knowledge that while you didn't buy anything, at least you stopped by and looked, which is really the only thing I ask for. Maybe people could start leaving comments or something? I guess that would represent actually purchasing merchandise at this imaginary store analogy, except that you wouldn't actually be spending money, so... yeah, I sort of lost my focus there. Let's move on.

What else do I usually do in this blog, aside from the whining? Ah yes, usually there's a link or two. Here's a good one: The Guild, a series of short videos about a group of people who play World of WarCraft waaaay too much. The sad part? I'm willing to bet that at least of quarter of the people I associate with (including myself) are or have been in this same situation: So it's Friday night, and...still jobless. Yay. Haven't left the house in a week. My therapist broke up with me. Oh yeah, there's a gnome warlock in my living room. Sleeping on my couch.

Why do we do this to ourselves?

-Draxle

Still working on the essays.

All I can say is that my enjoyment and appreciation for fine literature is become more and more diminished as I pour over these texts. I propose a new hypothesis: university literature classes are responsible for the erosion of interest in classic works.

At least the damn bird is gone. And in case you were wondering, no, I'm not just being a cynical, heartless bastard (even though I am all of those things.) The truth is, a former family friend basically foisted this burden upon us, that of caring for his daughter's birds when she went to college. The problem is, after she graduated, she didn't want them back, so we were stuck with noisy pets that we really didn't want to keep. Of course, my mom, being the animal lover that she is, cared for them anyway, because she's kind and nice like that. But none of us really liked the noisy, shrill little things; there's something evil and unpleasant about a creature that begins to keen just as you're getting ready to go to sleep, night after night.

-Draxle