Tag Archives: Musings

Mental Unhealth

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A couple of news stories caught my eye today.

The first was of a man who was riding his horse on the side of a Los Angeles freeway icon-external-link-12x12 . He was subsequently charged with a DUI after being detained by police—apparently there is no such thing as an RUI. This makes me wonder if he’s going to lose his license to drive his car? And was his horse impounded?

Police officer performing a DUI test on man. The man's horse is in the background. [Formatted]

The second was about a mother speaking out about the hazards of drugs icon-external-link-12x12 . A news story like this may seem unremarkable in 2018, but earlier this month the woman’s 20 year old daughter gouged out her own eyes while standing in front of a church. It’s rather difficult for me to wrap my head around something like this; I have a hard enough time when I cut myself shaving. Don’t do drugs, kids.

The good news is that there weren’t any school shootings today! Although it is Sunday, and most gunmen are detail-oriented enough to not shoot up a school on the weekend.

Antiphony, Entry 4: Dubious Criminal Ways

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From: Gerry Rice
Sent: February 12, 2018 12:19:35 AM PST
To: Recipients
Subject: Urgent Attention needed...

Dear Beneficiary, [Holy shit! Gerry Rice is emailing me!]

This is to officially inform you that an ATM Card that worth USD $2.5 Million [did you say 2.5 million dollars?] (Two Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) [okay, I guess you did, Mr. Rice] has been issued as a compensation payment for all the short listed [I'm never short listed, dude] 2012 till date scam victims [oh wait, is being on a short list a good thing?] whose email address was recovered during the recent internet probing and investigation process. [Now is probably a good time to tell you that I don't like probings of any kind.] Your email address was found among the list [the list? what list???] so we are in no doubt believed that those syndicates [wtf man? syndicates?!] must have collected monies from you through their dubious criminal ways. [Dubious criminals are definitely the worst kind of criminals.]

It was on these very recommendation that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) [whoa! the IMF!] in conjunction with the United State Government [whoa!! the US government!!] after series of meeting held came up with a sanction to compensate all foreign victims [I'm not a foreigner, does this disqualify me?] with a payment benefit of USD $2.5 Million [oooh the things I could do with that kind of money...] (Two Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) [...like buy my own helicopter!] each in order to restore the Global Economy to the enviable standard of respectability. [The Enviable Standard of Respectability!! Hey, that sounds like an album title!] Please note that upon receipt of your response we will process and send you ATM Card Payment and you will use it to withdraw your money in any ATM machine in any part of the world, [damn, my bank only allows me to withdraw $1000 per day from the ATM... this is going to be a grind] so if you like to receive your fund send us the following information;

1. Full Name: [Chad Philip Johnson]
2. Phone Number: [1-800-DEEZ-NUTZ]
3. Mailing Address: [12345 Wysteria Lane, Fantasy Land, CA]
4. Occupation: [Professional Occupier]
5. Send your ID card to confirm your name. [Okay... I will send this to you after I finish reading about all the other things I've won today.]

Your immediate compliance to this will expedite actions on your Payment because here in this office, we have a lot of listed victims to be settled. [Yes, the world is unfortunately full of victims.]

Mr. Gerry Rice [Gerry, you're awesome!! The 49ers suck shit without you!]
FOR International Monetary Fund. [The IMF rulz!]

Approved for Fragmented Audiences

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The image below is from the Looney Tunes short Canary Row icon-external-link-12x12 released by Warner Bros. Animation Studios way back in 1950. (68 years ago!) Sylvester the Cat is looking for something to eat and happens to spot Tweety Bird in his cage on the windowsill of another building. High jinks ensue.

Sylvester the Cat staring out the window of a building. The window has the words "Bird Watchers' Society" stenciled onto it.

Since there are so many people that have a dulled sense humor these days—if they have one at all—I will explain why this is funny: Sylvester is a cat, and it occurred to him one day that he should join a Bird Watchers’ Society to increase the likelihood of finding a tasty meal. Also, this is obviously a disreputable Bird Watchers’ Society if they allow a cat to be a member. It could actually be a Bird Watchers’ Society run by cats for cats, suggesting that there are many other deranged cats like Sylvester who already had the same idea.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re 7 years old or 70 years old—there is wonderful humor to be celebrated here. Unfortunately, children’s cartoons these days don’t do half of the things that Looney Tunes did, nor are they made for intelligent audiences. Meanwhile, adult cartoons, which are sometimes made for intelligent audiences, have to go completely over the top with every gag. I would say that the modern-day equivalent of this joke is a South Park or Family Guy episode featuring a new supporting character: a young professional from out of town who has been placed in charge of the local orphanage, but everyone is noticing that his behaviors and mannerisms resemble those of a child molester.

Actually, that would have been the equivalent joke back in 2008—in 2018, it is the same character, but in addition he regularly attends AA meetings even though he doesn’t drink alcohol. Maybe he also practices mixed martial arts every night to keep enough of his sexual frustrations in check so that he doesn’t ever mess up and get fired from his job.

I can only guess how politically correct children’s cartoons will be in another 10 years, and to what lengths adult cartoons will need to go to get their laughs. Sadly, there are literally many hundreds of top-notch Looney Tunes shorts that are largely ignored these days, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? (and Sometimes “How?”)

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If you ever want to have good, clean fun with the enthusiastic pot-smoker(s) in your life, sneak away his smartphone when he is off taking a massive bong rip and set the alarm to 4:20am. Sort of like this:

Cell phone screenshot displaying the alarm app set to ring Monday morning at 04:20. [Formatted]

Odds are good he won’t notice you made this change and will be jolted out of bed on Monday morning well before the sun rises.

Also, I would have liked to configure a pop-up message that appears as the alarm is going off that says “Wake up!!! It’s 4:20am Monday morning, dude! The early bird gets the worm! The party starts with you! Time to smoke some green!!!!” Unfortunately, this particular app doesn’t have that feature implemented yet (but I filed a suggestion with the developers).

On a related note, isn’t it funny how the only thing pot-smokers never forget to do is smoke more pot? The rest of us just have to struggle to remember as many things as we possibly can, and dart in increasingly-random mental directions as we attempt to hold on to important memories and life details that are in the process of being further displaced, lost, or forgotten.

(NOTE: This post was written after drinking 3ea Obsidian Stout beers, produced by Deschutes Brewery icon-external-link-12x12 in the US state of Proper Oregon.)