may contain trace quantities of nuts

the devil is 5 foot 2 and carries a golf umbrella 4/28/2005

hello my lambs. you’ll all be happy to know that i’ve located a much better coffee supplier. the nearest peet’s was pointed out to me by my manager here at gamesplop, who has taken to putting notices in my code that “Megan is a trekkie,” which i think stretches the truth a bit. yes, hugh (nee ‘third of five’) brought more than a few tears to my eye when he uttered the words in his borgy-voice “they do not wish to be assimilated,” but i’ve never been to a trek convention so i think someone may be getting a tad overzealous in his classifications. i guess we take the good with the bad.

onwards. today it’s drizzling a little. i firmly believe that folks from hereabouts can tell the difference between drizzle and cats-and-dogs, seeing as the local passtime seems to be bitching about rain. why, then, did so many people have their brollies out this morning? not that i have anything against the wussies, i just found it strange.

there was, however, one particular breed of wimp i wanted to have wheeled out and shot, the Short Person With Golf Umbrella. those of you over 5′8 will understand where i’m coming from. i nearly lost more eyes than i have, thanks to the little shits.

… sorry, folks, i got nothing this morning. come back this weekend; the movers are coming tomorrow morning, that should make me pretty disagreeable for a while.

some of us actually do expect the spanish inquisition 4/20/2005

so. they’ve chosen themselves a pope, all those ridiculous old men who like to wear red. they did it behind closed doors, something i find ironic for a group that spends so much of its time forcing its way through other people’s closed doors and decreeing what is and is not to occur there. but if i start listing all the brilliant hypocrasies of the vatican, we’ll be here all day, really. so i’ll just focus on the one or two that really take the cake.

who have they chosen? they’ve chosen cardinal joseph ratzinger, someone the news outlets i’ve found have been falling all over themselves to describe as “an intellectual” and “a philosopher,” apparently because he taught at the university of tübingen. this is an interesting characterization, seeing as most of the shit he’s written has been simply tearing apart other religions for not making any sense, tearing up feminism for destroying the nuclear family and tearing up homosexuality for being a perversion. not exactly what i consider heavy intellectualism coming from a catholic cardinal. i’ve read him described from more than one source as “a controversial choice” because of his views on women and on homosexuality and on the church in general. this is all true. by all accounts he appears to be a complete cromag.

but, lets take a step back folks. lets take a larger look at the room. whats that thing in the middle of it? the huge thing with the trunk that no one is talking about? that would be the years he spent as a nazi, helping germany in its attempt to exterminate the jews, roma and homosexual men. yes, our pope joined up with the hitler jugend when he was 14 and stuck with it until the war ended in 1945. the spin is that he “deserted” the army in 1945 and was “taken capture” by the allies. yes. a very courageous stand to take, deserting after the war had been lost and surrendering to an army you know perfectly well is not going to execute you. but they tell us that it was his time as a nazi soldier that made him realize how important peace is.

to me, his views on women’s place in society and the moral worth of homosexuals seem to be uncomforatbly reminiscent of the opinions of WWII germany, so i’m dubious of how deep an effect the war really had on his moral compass (perhaps that’s unfair, i dont know; i have a hard time being fair when it comes to people who ever wore nazi uniforms, but i would think that seeing what irrational hate and fear of large groups of people can lead to would make one a much more accepting human being). what i find particularly nauseating, however, is that a man who once killed other human beings in military service to nazi germany sees fit to declare that women aren’t good enough for ordination. it would seem all the catholic nuns who were busy risking their lives to hide jewish children while he was off helping his country exterminate their parents are less suitable spiritual guides than he is, regardless of the fact that he lacked the moral courage and, let’s face it, spirit of god enough to resist. likewise, he would tell us that someone like sophie scholl, a girl who was executed for her nazi resistance activities that were largely informed by her faith in god, is similarly an unsuitable moral leader (note that i am in no way suggesting that women were the sole actors for good in that war; i only highlight specific women in this case as women as a group are being judged as unworthy to speak for god). yet he will now be able to literally pontificate on the sanctity of life, this man who fought in service of a group that western history has come to understand as the absolute antithesis of respect for the sanctity of life.

now, i understand that he was basically a kid during his years with the german army (he would have been all of 18 in 1945, i believe), and i’m certainly not intending to compare him to himmler or goebbels or any of the other party glitterati. i understand perfectly well how people in caught up in completely insanse situations can find themselves participating in insane things. however, i am suggesting that a man with such a dirty, dirty smear on his moral record should probably shut his fucking mouth when it comes to the judging the ecclesiastical suitability of other humans who were clearly and obviously being much more influenced by a spirit of god.

i suppose, bottom line, my question is this: if women aren’t fit to be moral and spiritual guides because of our ovaries, shouldn’t we at LEAST expect that god’s representative on earth NOT have ever been a nazi??

when i said i loved california, i didn’t mean the people 4/15/2005

yes, i know it’s friday, and it’s sunny out and the birdies are tweeting and the pretty flowers are in bloom and we’re all young and beautiful and live in eden out here, and that’s fantastic, but i still have to fucking get to work. friday does something to californians. it kicks their efficiency switches down from ‘hey, no rush’ to ‘hey, there’s still at least 12 hours of daylight left, right?’. friday morning is definitely not the best time to be an impatient further-east-personality-type person trying to get a cup of decaffinated coffee, and not because you LIKE it.

those of us from places like chicago and cleveland and new york, im assuming, understand the purpose of a coffee stand, what it serves, how it serves it and, most importantly, what is expected of us, the customer. calfornians, not so much. i stood in line at a coffee stand (not shop, not cafe, coffee STAND, with stale, saran wrapped muffins in a basket next to the cash register) for about fifteen minutes this morning waiting for a fucking cup of decaf as a bunch of all-the-time-in-the-world half-wits hemmed and hawed about what to get on their bagels. most of them were not buying coffee.

the folks ahead of me in particular, stood in line for the same ten minutes i did, right next to the little menu sign nailed to the side of the coffee stand, talking about the wedding the went to over the weekend, how drunk they got at it, how drunk they got at their sisters wedding last year, how drunk they got at their best friend’s wedding a month ago, and how drunk they planned to get tonight. when they got up to the window to order? it went like this:

turd 1: “oh, hey. i’ll have a … uh … what kind are there … *checks sign he’s been standing next to for ten minutes* … a wheat bagel … no, wait, make that a poppyseed one with … uh … *checks sign again* … artichokes and hot peppers on one half, and on the other half … uh … *turns to turd 2* what do you want ?”

turd 2: “i dunno, what do they have ?”

the prince of peace himself would have bitch slapped them.

other people who had already ordered would get bitchy about the fact that their bagels all came with the wrong stupid shit on them. “this bagel has chive-horseradish cream cheese on it, and i ordered bleu!” to their credit, the extremely harried coffee stand workers would just stare them down, not saying anything but “plain. iss plain.” stubbornly holding out the bagel, until the complainer inevitably said “oh, fine. whatever.” and took the plain bagel, with plain cream cheese.

but here’s the point, california. a coffee stand serves coffee. and sometimes stale bagels with little packets of philadelphia that you have to spread yourself. and anyway, bagels are not supposed to wear cranberry compote or fois gras or wheatgrass or any of the other fucked up shit you seem to want to put on them. at a coffee stand? order a plain fucking bagel with some plain fucking cream chese, so i don’t have to stand behind you for an hour, waiting to order my cup of motherfucking decaf, spending my time pointlessly trying to beam my hatred into a cranium you clearly don’t have. seriously.

now can i PLEASE have my motherfucking DECAF already? i swear to GOD it’s in everyone’s best interests.

We Are Experiencing Difficult Technicalities 4/6/2005

hello all.

apparently some of you read this silly thing. so to those of you who’ve been wondering, a few things happened last weekendish.

1. We sold our house.
2. We found a new apartment in SF
3. Joe’s colo box had a stroke and died.

in light of numbers 1 and 2, it took a while to get number 3 fixed. additionally, as some of you may or may not be aware, i now work for a fairly big deal website company in their Games & Entertainment division and we have a new site launching the end of may.

so, i *promise* to get to writing snarky little nothings just as soon as my world calms down a tad. certainly by june. unless by then the big one hits and SF sinks into the ocean. that could conceivably push things off until july.

stop smiling, lance.