2013-12-31

2013: End of year thoughts.

I'll be blunt - 2013 was a shitty year.

I've come to the conclusion that the World is on a dangerous path to extinction care of global warming, and collectively our governments are not the way to solving this problem.

I've realized that corporations large, medium, and small pretty much dominate everything in life, and that this is a big part of why no one is really doing anything about addressing global warming. They effectively gum up the works of pretty much every political process to suit their own interests at the expense of the very societies these systems are supposed to be accountable to.

Too many bad movies - too many movies with the same 1-2 actors being pushed over and over. I really get sick of that. I get sick of seeing really horribly-talented actors showing up in just about every film either with ugly faces and acting, or annoying celebrity voice-overs. And really - all these endless CGI movies and celebrity voice-over stupidity - that is the best the film industry can do? That's as original as they can get?

I watched everything I did at the office amount to absolutely nothing in terms of promotion, merit, or even real acknowledgement. Indeed, every accomplishment was read back to me by the powers-that-be read more like a bunch of back-handed compliments.

I watched as other people who cannot perform the actual job (but are very good at managing up and ass-licking) move into positions of authority.

After two consecutive years of writing rock albums - I hit a complete stop this year and failed to write one. Oh I have tons of ideas, words, chord progressions lying around. And I did have a track listing to walk through. Yet somehow I couldn't do it.

I started the year w/a mysterious back injury, that despite some surgery and tons of stretching, remains with me to this very moment, unresolved.

I watched my home life become more unhappy as the problems from the previous years only seemed remain and be unresolved.

It's the year I really felt like I hit middle age. I finally am seeing the first visible signs of aging in my face, in my skin, in my hair.

And not just in age and appearance.

But I mean I felt colder, grumpier, less patient, less tolerant.

Okay - that's the bad.

Was there any good?

Well... I did become a US Citizen. Finally after all these years of work and struggle, I'm able to work pretty much anywhere in the US or Canada.

I did lose some weight. Granted because of the aformentioned back injury, I wasn't nearly working out as much as I should. Hence, I think much of the weight I lost was largely muscle mass. Still I didn't put on any fat though.

I did make some connections here and there with possible moves I could make in the future. It's simply a question of seeing the right opportunity coming around and making the right move.

I still have my ideas. I still have my lyrics. I still have my chord progressions. I still have my track listings.

And perhaps most important - the shitty 2013 gives me all the motivation now to make 2014 a year I will look back on fondly. It's up to me to make it happen.

2013-12-29

Franz Bakery caught lying about High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) in their products!

To a lot of companies, saying their products don't contain HFCS is apparently is marketing. They hope you'll see that and buy there products and hopefully not notice the reality.

Case in point -

The other day the Mrs. went to store and was buying hamburger buns. As is the case in American grocery stores, pretty much every food product (unless actually certified organic) being pushed has either high fructose corn syrup or some other genetically modified ingredient.

So we've typically bought Franz bakery stuff because they go out of their way to say on the front of their products that it doesn't contain this frakenshit.

When she reached out to a set of of rolls that were indeed advertised as such, initially she was going to put it in the cart. But curiosity getting the better of her, she turned it around and looked carefully through the ingredient list (she's been burned recently by this, as have I)

Guess what? On the front of the package, it clearly listed 'No High Fructose Corn Syrup'.

Guess what else? On the back of the package, guess what ingredient was listed?

HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP!

You can imagine her surprise, as well as mine when she told me.

This got me wondering about a lot of things -

Was this a one-off situation?
Could this just be a misprint?
Is this only at one store?

So yesterday, we went to another grocery store in another part of the county. And this time I brought along my phone.

Here's what I saw-

Looks alright doesn't it? Then I turned it over and looked at the ingredient list ...

Hmm ... let's blow that up a bit shall we?

Marketing is all about getting you to suspend your judgement and do what someone (or as is often the case, a large corporation) want you to do (buy their product).

Facts and reality are a pesky thing - they don't just go away do they?

Thank you Franz. Now not only will I not buy this product or any other product of yours, but starting today, I frankly will not trust your labels going forward.

2013-12-24

XMAS eve

Here I am again. Another day of loathing and either watching others enjoy their work and be successful; or worse them not being here at all and being happy in their lives.

I have been told that in life you should strive for happiness; from which success should follow.

Since I have come to the conclusion that I really have never gotten either in my life, it's hard to know if that's the way to go.

2013-12-23

Truman would've known

Wonder if I can find this original op-ed piece he wrote about the CIA, coincidentally a few days after JFK was murdered?

http://consortiumnews.com/2013/12/22/trumans-true-warning-on-the-cia/

Truman then moved quickly to one of the main things bothering him. He wrote “the most important thing was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead the President into unwise decisions.”

Think this doesn't have repercussions, even today? Think again assholes -

This may be small solace to President Obama, but there is no sign that the NSA documents that Snowden’s has released include the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,300-page report on CIA torture. Rather, that report, at least, seems sure to be under Obama’s and Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein’s tight control.

But the timorous President has a big problem. He is acutely aware that, if released, the Senate committee report would create a firestorm – almost certainly implicating Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and many other heavy-hitters of whom he appears to be afraid. And so Obama has allowed Brennan to play bureaucratic games, delaying release of the report for more than a year, even though its conclusions are said to closely resemble earlier findings of the CIA’s own Inspector General and the Constitution Project

2013-12-22

Did everyone in the Northern Hemisphere enjoy the Winter Solstice yesterday?

Winter Solstice - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_21

"In the Northern Hemisphere, December 21st is the first day of Winter and the shortest day of the year."

2013-12-20

Ah another weekend of joy.

Yay me.

2013-12-18

Good holiday cheer for some; death and misery for others.

And sometimes it happens in the same neighborhood -

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/12/18/3081571/bay-area-homeless-deaths/

2013-12-16

How would you feel if you knew about the following?

1. Corporations Profit from Food Stamps
2. Crash the Economy, Get Your Money Back. Die with a Student Loan, Stay in Debt.
3. Almost 70% of Corporations Are Not Required to Pay ANY Federal Taxes
4. Lotteries Pay for Corporate Tax Avoidance
5. The National Football League Pays No Federal Taxes
6. Live on Park Avenue, Get a Farm Subsidy
7. Profit Margin Magic: Turning a dollar into $100,000

Read about it here - http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/12/16-1.

Then throw up, cry, scream - whatever it takes to get you to plug back into the media complex that pushes endless crappy content at you to forget all this ever had already happened.

2013-12-15

Death Zones - a scary part of my childhood found on YouTube.

I think I was traumatized for decades by these movies -

Death Zones

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I thought this was so real when I first saw it. That voice-over ... that chilling music ...
... the notion that death can happen right as you're coming home.

Interesting how the non-white kids meet their end instantly (okay in that 2nd film, scary voice-over guy implies that he survives, but hey! He doesn't move), but the white girl is still alive at the end of hers.

2013-12-13

This is why I'd have real trouble voting for Hillary Clinton.

When she says stupid things like this -

http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/12/12/hillary-clinton-tells-wall-street-she-believes-anti-wall-street-rhetoric-foolish/

2013-12-11

That the NSA spying thing made the Wikipedia 'In the news' section is itself news.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_surveillance_disclosure#December

The new explosive bit -

"The Washington Post revealed that the NSA has been tracking the locations of mobile phones from all over the world by tapping into the cables that connect mobile networks globally and that serve U.S. cellphones as well as foreign ones. In the process of doing so, the NSA collects more than 5 billion records of phone locations on a daily basis. This enables NSA analysts to map cellphone owners’ relationships by correlating their patterns of movement over time with thousands or millions of other phone users who cross their paths.^[185]^[186]^[187]^[188]^[189]^[190]^[191]"

2013-12-10

The story of how the CIA sold out Mandela should be told over and over again.

http://fair.org/take-action/media-advisories/cia-and-mandela-can-the-story-be-told-now/

Yes, the truth still counts.

Is it just me ...

... or do all the women in these pictures appear extremely overjoyed at how shocked you are at how beautiful they are made to look?

2013-12-09

The joy of my life.

Blogging used to be such a fun thing.

Whenever I had a thought or rant or saw something that caught my eye, I'd post it and comment.

Inevitably, I used the Internet to connect and learn about how truly fucked up the planet really is, and where it's going. So suddenly it's become almost like a game with myself - how can I top the last entry in terms of progressiveness and liberalness.

Then life sets in.

A job. A family. Endless responsibilities and zero reward.These things take over. And before I knew it, I find myself posting in between the kids reading with grandma, and my 10 minute workout to prevent my body from falling into further disrepute.

It used to be fun. Many things used to be fun. Perhaps I'm paying the price for being such a slacker much of my life. But truly it's hard to find a lot to be positive about these days.

2013-12-07

Man, talk about liberalish.

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/12/gates-foundations-24-most-egregious-investments

I noticed this at Microsoft - he always talked a good game and it sounded good, but somehow it always got twisted and ended up evil.

2013-12-05

RIP Nelson Mandela

A true fighter who will always be remembered.

New shoe blues

I must have weird feet. It seems over the last few years it's been extremely difficult to find a pair of shoes that not only fit comfortably, but don't fall apart.

Is it I have poor judgement? Bad taste? Or just bad luck?

Granted I think I put shoes through a lot more paces than say 10 years ago. But still ...

Finding a pair of black leather shoes that don't crack, are weather-resistant, and are afffordable ...

America, why do you mock me so?

2013-12-04

'messy public relations' indeed.

"I suspect this decision has a lot more to do with messy public relations than with science. From a strictly scientific perspective, the Séralini study isn’t a big deal: It’s just one of the many safety trials that researchers have performed on GM foods; it amounts to little when considered as part of the whole picture. The way scientists usually deal with this sort of finding is to ignore it. As Séralini’s team pointed out in a response to the retraction [doc], many other studies might be disqualified if they were held to the same standard.

From a public-relations perspective, on the other hand, the Séralini study is a huge deal. To people who aren’t familiar with the larger body of research, and who mistrust GMOs, it looks like proof that GM food kills. It produced disturbing images of tumorous rats that continue bouncing around social media to this day. The retraction provides an easy rejoinder to that sort of thing. As in, “You know that study was retracted, right?”"

Stupidity and its need to circumvent fact and observation wins out here - only because it's institutionalized.

But facts are a pesky thing - they just don't go away because enough people have been convinced to ignore the reality of what observing those facts mean.

http://grist.org/food/rat-retraction-reaction-journal-pulls-its-gmos-cause-rat-tumors-study/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Daily%2520Nov%25203&utm_campaign=daily