The Graveyard of Broken Technology

The countertop across from my work area has evolved into a graveyard of broken computer parts. It's like being seated across from a Dell cemetery.

Call me weird, whatever, but this mount of crap ass monitors, hard drives, keyboards, headsets, mouse clickers, as well as whole other hosts of random wires, technical doodads, and computer whatchafuckit's, does absolutely nothing to improve my sour disposition throughout the regualr work day. There’s just something fundamentally wrong about being expected to work beside a mound of shit and it's bound to make one more than a little discombobulated while laboring. It’s like working in the Death Star’s trash compactor. I’m forever waiting for that trash monster to suddenly come out from nowhere and grab me by the legs and drag me kicking and screaming under my desk to my ultimate demise. And what’s even more disconcerting than that – is that some days I even pray for it!

It makes me feel like something that's been left out for scrap by the side of the road. Now I know how my first 1976 Chevolet Tornado felt. Is this supposed to motivate me?

Now, I agree, I don’t know particular computer parts from a cow’s asshole*, but I do know broken shit when I sees broken shit. And this shit is broke! What? Are they waiting for somebody to miraculously build them another super machine from the abandoned bits so that they can one day proudly proclaim: “Number Five Is Alive”?

Are we supposed to be hoping that the computer fairies will come during the night and restore these particular broken-ass computers back to their original working order? Because this sure doesn't feel like the 'Shoemaker and the Elves' here!

Or are they juicy offerings to prevent the vengeful wrath of some All-Mighty office god that I don’t even know about yet? Is that what those guys are always praying for in that secluded back room? Should I be more worried than I am now? Thank God I'm not a virgin**!

I mean, honestly, is this a professional office place or fucking ‘Sanford & Son’? All that’s missing from the scene at this moment is some old graying black guy in the corner bitching about his bad ticker.

I would love to show some true “business initiative” and just start throwing all this useless shit out but I’m afraid I could unwittingly trigger the rise of the machines who would then begin Armageddon and the ultimate global extermination of mankind. Perhaps that's not really my team manager but an artificial organism…living tissue stretched over a metal exoskeleton sent by Skynet to eradicate my productivity levels.

Now THAT’S bound to be a shitty workday! That's all I need to see a regenerated cyborg killing machine rise out from the trashcan, take aim at my forehead, and mutter: “Hastas La Vista, Employee 4884”.

I know, I know. I’m bored. But it still pisses me off.

* In fact, the total amount of accumulated computer knowledge that I have managed to acquire in my 33 years of existence on planet Earth would probably only still equate to those primates poking at the upright obelisk in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’.

** The verdict is still out on that one. The current claim by the author is that he has joined a born-again celebacy cult and is using his stored up sexual energy to meditate on solving the mathematical formula for turning broccoli into gold.

Ten Most Dangerous Jobs

The ‘Ten Most Dangerous Jobs’ in the world are listed as follows:

1) LOGGING WORKERS – Whoever said that it was better to work in the Great Outdoors than in an enclosed, sterile office environment certainly never had to operate a chainsaw 200 ft. in the air or run the risk of being crushed under a fallen tree I guess.

2) AIRCRAFT PILOTS + FLIGHT ENGINEERS – Wait, I thought that flying was the safest way to travel? How can pilots make this claim and then still profess to have the second most dangerous job? Unless they’re just using this listing to pick up chicks in airport bars while on furlough in foreign airports. Either it’s safe, or it’s not safe. Make up your friggin’ minds and let us make up our own minds before going on vacation.

3) FISHERS + RELATED WORK – I can understand how snow crab fishing in the Bering Strait would be considered extremely dangerous, but I’m just not going to buy that a retired recreational angler sitting on a cooler drinking beers on the edge of a pond has any real worries besides getting too drunk and catching himself on a fishing hook.

4) STRUCTURAL IRON + STEEL WORKERS – No argument here. These guys are crazy! You’d have to be in order to walk along steel girders no wider than a toaster hundreds of feet in the air with no safety harnesses. The real travesty here is that they are ranked behind the pilots who sit in comfy chairs, push buttons and pretend that their job is dangerous despite popular airline allegations. Of course, willingly subjecting themselves to the specific risks associated to working without a net would probably also automatically qualify them for the top slot in the list of the ‘World’s Stupidest Employee’s’. But I digress…

5) REFUSE + RECYCLABLE MATERIAL – Pardon? Garbage men have a dangerous job? I find that a little hard to believe that 43.2 per 100,000 employed are killed each year. Are they contracting and dying from contagious diseases they caught from hauling people’s trash or something? Statistics show that the majority of garbage men are killed by explosions from hazardous waste or mowed down my impatient passing motorists. Well, if stupid drivers are the majority cause of death among garbage men, wouldn’t that mean all us pedestrians should also be somewhere on this list?

6) FARMERS + RANCHERS – At first glance, I was surprised to see this category of employ on the list of ‘Most Dangerous Jobs’. But then I considered most farmers I know and have seen. Almost all of them have scars from back when they were either run over by a tractor, got mangled in a combine, or got kicked in the head by an ornery mule. So in hindsight, perhaps they do deserve a place on this list.

7) ROOFERS – Understandably. Refer to Structural Iron + Steel Workers.

8) ELECTRICAL POWER LINE INSTALLER + REPAIRERS – Fucking-A! No contest here. In my humble opinion, you are either a few sandwiches short of a picnic or have a death wish to work this job - probably a combination of both. I get nervous even changing the batteries in my television remote control.

9) DRIVERS/SALES WORKERS + TRUCK DRIVERS – Where I understand the imminent dangers existing on our highways and city streets, I still can’t seem to sympathize with this category of Dangerous Jobs. I’d be more wary of being a Boy Scout leader in this day and age than I would be of being a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman.

10) TAXI DRIVERS + CHAUFFEURS – If I didn’t have much concern or sympathy for truck drivers or traveling salesmen, I’m sure as shit not going to shed any tears for cabbies or chauffeurs – no matter what the death toll is. Shuttling around spoiled rotten celebrities in luxury automobiles is not my idea of a dangerous job unless you’re working for, say, Cameron Crowe or Naomi Campbell. And for anyone who has ever accepted a ride from a sour contemptuous New York city cabbie – well, they deserve what they get anyways.

After reviewing this list I have one burning question eating away at the back of my mind: what does it say about my own job when I would happily perform any of these dangerous jobs over my own? I guess, apart from, say, the person who collects sperm samples from bull elephants (which I can’t believe didn’t make the ‘Most Dangerous Jobs’ list by the way) that would make my own job on the top of the list of ‘Ten Most Shittiest Jobs’.

Down With the Sickness

I am sick as a dog.

Actually, even if you were to shoot the damn dog, he’d probably still feel better than I do right now. I know I have whined before about feeling under the weather; but what can I say, I am nothing if not consistent. And I’m not talking about the kind of “sick” here in the pleasant, hipper sense of the vernacular either – I mean in the real sneezing, coughing, aching, taking a sledgehammer to your stuffy head so you can sleep kind of sickness. I feel like the Devil’s turd warmed over.

So it also goes without saying then that I’m also a tad bit cranky these days - even moreso than normal. In fact, in the particular temperament I’m in lately, I would make Reggie and Ronnie Kray look like friggin’ Boy Scouts. My mantra in this condition is this: If I have to suffer, everyone is going to suffer with me. Particularly those morons who are immediately drawn to ask me: “so, what are you doing for it?” These dipshits I just want to kick in the stomach so I can ask them what they intend to do for their present condition.

I’m dripping like a diuretic gerbil, my throat feels like sandpaper, and my glands have swelled large enough that you could land a helicopter on. What do they think I’m doing for it? Nothing! I’m just dealing with it and letting the sickness run it’s natural course through my body like every other man since the dawn of time.

Everyone thinks that they have the perfect remedy to cure naturally occurring illnesses and viruses. I got news for you all: BULLSHIT! Who honestly believes that any of these prescribed medicated balms, mustard rubs, or special herbal teas really do you any good when you’re feeling crappy? Why not also then go that extra mile and just smear yourself with peanut butter and walk in backward concentric circles by the light of a full moon? Hey, it could work!

Honestly, I don’t think anything really heals you properly apart from the passing of time. I think all these accepted home remedies that I get offered are only misleading placebo’s that in reality, have little to no effect on my health whatsoever. For example, why do some people swear by Royal Jelly? I fail to see how something secreted out of a honeybee’s ass can actually improve my condition. Does bee shit have magical healing properties or something? I doubt it. Likewise, what the point of mustard rubs apart from inflicting medieval-style torture on someone? It feels like having hot lava rubbed into your chest. How is this making me feel better? Shit, I know what happened on the battlefields at Ypres and I’m not too eager to repeat that fatal tragedy. Why not just place me in an Iron Maiden and just get it over with?

I think I can perhaps trace this irrational fear of mine back to single particular moment in my past. Once, when I was particularly under the weather (in fact, it was worse that just being merely “under the weather” - this more felt like I had been buried alive by the weather), I relented to a friend’s advice and seeked out a bottle of special cold medication, which, she claimed, was guaranteed to “sure what ails ‘ya”. ‘Oh goodie’, I thought. Not only can I drive the flu demons from my body, but I can also cure my fear of heights and bone up on my trigonometry as well. Sadly, to this day, not only do I still feel shitty on a regular basis; but I still can’t climb up onto a step stool without weeping like a little girl and I still break out into cold sweats whenever I see an isosceles triangle.

Anyways, I’m not sure why I gave into her helpful persistence unless I was hallucinating with fever at the time. Whatever the case, I remember routing out this particular miracle elixir in a desperate attempt to get better. It was not something that you couldn’t find in your average local pharmacy or Co-Op health food store - oh no! This was like trying to find the Holy Grail.

I eventually found her elusive cure-all on some dusty forgotten shelf in the back of some New Age/Occult Shop in an alleyway somewhere from some gypsy woman with a hooked nose and a the polite sales candor of a Nazi doctor. Of course, I suspect that she may also lure small children out to her Gingerbread house in the forest in her off time - but wasn’t any of my concern since I doubted that small children were recommended to cure the common cold. So with my specially procured bottle of medicine secured under my arm I returned home to my apartment to finally let the healing begin.

I did everything I figured I was supposed to do when trying to get better. I laid out my clean jammies, lit some candles, popped on some Dave Brubeck on the stereo, set some chicken soup on to boil, drew a hot bath, and looked at my bottle of medicine. It was more like I was about to attempt an exorcism than I was to simply self-medicate myself with cough syrup and curl up on the couch to watch James Bond for the evening. But such is always my way.

The bottle recommended only a single tablespoon of this sticky red sludge. But considering how shitty I felt at the time, I thought that this dosage was a bit trite, so I thought it more prudent to take a bit more than just the recommended single dose to ease my suffering. And so I set to slugging back this thick gooey substance in mouthfuls straight from the bottle. For three days, I chugged back this potent formula like a hobo slamming back shoe polish under an overpass. But still there was no change in my condition. In fact, I felt even shittier.

What the fuck? This friend PROMISED me that I would feel better almost instantly. I had expected the clouds to part, angels to sing, a shaft of heavenly light, and a deep thundering voice to tell me that I would be fine from now on and to carry on and do his work. She swore to me that this miracle potion would heal all my aches, sniffles, and plugged cavities, and here I was feeling worse off and literally melting into my duvet. I was still feeling like I had gone 12 rounds with Mike Tyson.

Time I took restock of my healing regiment. It was then that I more closely reexamined the mysterious bottle’s label to see if there was any possible reason why I wasn’t making any noticeable improvement. And then I discovered the warning in itsy-bitsy lettering on the bottom of the bottle's label – so small it could barely be made out with the naked eye:

“May cause nausea, vomiting, headaches, dry mouth, diarrhea, or anal seepage.”

Swell. How’s that for the perfect prescription for health? Those words still ring in my ears whenever I feel the slightest tinge of a cold coming on. That definitely explains why I was still feeling so poorly and especially why I was spending more time in the bathroom. It also shed some light on why I was now also receiving shareholder’s stock reports from Charmin toilet paper in the mail.

What is the point of taking something whose own side-effects only make you feel worse than the ones you’re already suffering from? I want to get better, not exchange symptoms. This isn’t ‘Let’s Make A Symptom Deal’! What’s a little case of the sniffles when compared to a case of anal seepage? I’ll just stick with the original running nose and cold virus, but thanks for offering.

And, so, began my immanent mistrust of home remedies and pharmaceutical prescriptions. Perhaps they may serve to cure your head cold and give you a buzz the likes of which you haven’t experienced since Frosh Week back in university, but only at the expense of having your ass gush like a ruptured fire hydrant, or perhaps even having your toes drop off.

I think that all these quick cures and medicated aids, whether they be some eye-of-newt potions that would strip the rust off a farm tractor or a simple packet of Halls Mentholyptus, or whatever, are just further means to separate the sick and the stupid from their hard-earned money while in a state of vulnerability. “Here kid, take a teaspoon of this and call the mortician n the morning.”

Well, I’m not falling for it again. I’m just going to let Mother Nature bitch-slap me around like a red-headed stepchild until she grows weary of tormenting me and allows my health to return naturally in due time. If anyone just wants to alleviate my suffering and simply try and make me more comfortable with my system while the bugs wind down their germ Martis-Gras in my body, they can just offer me a simple bowl of Kraft Macaroni and maybe a hummer instead.

Apart from that, just let me suffer in peace.

Crazytigerrabbitman Cums Clean

I saw today on the Health Channel about a New Age sexuality workshop being offered to men in order to teach them how to masturbate more efficiently and ultimately show them how to pleasure themselves more intently and enjoyably.

Pardon?

I’m sure this weekend long instructional retreat is very informative and helpful for the participants and all, but I just can't help but feel plain sorry for these guys. After all, what kind of dude doesn't know how to flog his own dolphin? Shit, I could have both my arms cut off in a tragic freak accident and I bet I would eventually grow another arm out of my chest out of sheer necessity to masturbate with. Not that sitting in a circle facing into a group of other hairy men all beating their meat like they were ending world hunger wouldn't be an ideal weekend getaway, but isn't masturbating a God given natural instinct for men like eating, sleeping, and breathing? What kind of a man would actually enroll in a class to learn how to beat off? Geez, if it really comes that unnaturally for some men, perhaps the only thing then that will really help and save them would be an arsenic milkshake.

How can some men not know how to masturbate? Poor-fucking-bastards. Masturbating is like anything else they ever began doing as a young boy. Like skateboarding, riding a bike, or hitting a hanging curveball; masturbating is a skill that we learn early on and which we continue to improve upon with age and experience.

At 33 years of age and still single after nearly a decade, I’m practically a Grand Master – a regular Grand Poohbah of pounding pud. If masturbating were considered an art form, I’d be Vincent-fucking-Van Gogh. In fact, I’ve become so proficient at masturbating lately that when the issue of which degree of ghi I should wear to represent my skills came up at the 'International League of Masturbators', it was determined that my masturbatory prowess transcended mere color and that I could wear any damn belt I please. That’s how good I am at wacking off!

What can I say? I took to it like Oprah Winfrey to a bowl of Fruit Loops.

At first, like most young boys, I didn’t really understand the principles behind what was happening to my penis. I just poked and prodded at it curiously until it erupted like a miniature Krakatoa and sending splendid kaleidoscope explosions of intense color behind my eyeballs as they rolled back into my head like boiled eggs. It was better than the smell of bubblegum hockey cards; it was better than the Super Friends; it was even better than hitting a hanging curveball. Later on in high school, while the bigger, more handsome boys were all luring cheerleaders under the bleachers and fiddling with their complicated undergarments, I was perfecting my solo efforts while locked in the family bathroom and playing out fantasies of nailing the Doublemint twins on bales of hay in my lurid imagination. It may not be something to brag about in the cafeteria the next day over cartons of milk, but it was a developing skill that would better serve me later in life.

It was during this time you see that I really learned how to feel myself out, so to speak. I was mastering the equipment I was born with. Since there was no easy-to-read owner’s manual for my penis issued at birth, I was left alone to my own devices to work out the complicated inner working of my budding manhood. And if the odd blonde Nipplebot should enter into the mental picture while I was doing so - so much the better.

Now, nearly 20 years later, and with a whole wealth of experience in rubbing my monkey, I can orgasm while even watching reruns of Roseanne. It has become something that as a man I pride myself on. I now consider myself to be the Yoda of masturbation. I am able to block out all external stimulus while masturbating apart from the grainy, fleshy images flickering lewdly on the television. I can probably even manage to achieve an El Firmo while sitting in front of an open window within view of my neighbors, or even with my cat staring at me intently. It used to be that I would have to be cordoned off secretly from the world and the cat would have to be locked away in another room so that his seemingly disparaging looks wouldn’t serve to make me feel so pathetic during the deed. Now, I couldn’t care less. Invite some friends over; have the cat pull up a seat and stare all he likes; just nobody block the ‘Teenaged Butt Pirates Vol.12’ on the television screen.

Classes? Bah!

Just issue them a box of Kleenex, some Cocoabutter lotion, and a lifetime membership to 'Spanky's Adult Video & Peepshow' and they'll figure it out.

How does one become qualified to teach such a class by the way? Are there special wacking off qualifications required for such a position? Does one need references? The whole thing just sounds squishy, err, fishy to me.

I Am Cannabian (Part I)

DISCLAIMER: “LIES! LIES! They’re all lies. Please take everything you read here with a grain of salt…well, maybe a kilogram of salt. Can you buy a kilogram of salt? Anyways, bear in mind that the author of these lies is a storyteller and a complete dorknik to boot. He has created fictional characters, subversive plotlines, and manipulated data to suit his personal needs. In essence – he’s full of crap. Enjoy.”
~ The Female Companion

It has officially been one week that has passed since I have returned from my vacation to the East Coast, and it’s only now that I’ve had a mind to put pen to paper and assemble together some of the fond memories, realizations, insights, and other assorted brain droppings from this journey that are still rambling around in my short term memory like a marble in a soup can. Mostly, this past week has been about catching up on my missed ZZZ's by napping in front of Judge Judy.

It was another monumental journey of firsts for me. This time, having already successfully completed trips by both plane and train, it seemed only for me natural to therefore make this leg of the journey by automobile. Why not? So far, it hasn’t been as bad as the movie made it out to be, but I haven’t exactly picked up any fat traveling salesmen along the way either. Live and learn, baby. After conquering the Rocky Mountains of Jasper, Alberta, and braving the dangerous Redneck State of Texas, and not to mention the trip to the heart of America's mainland in Spotsylvania, Virginia, I decided to tackle the Canadian Maritimes on this year's particular adventure.

I guess I was just curious to discover the opposite side of this, somewhat mysterious as it is alluring, side of my country. By mysterious, I mean that we already have the Mighty West or the ‘ol West, the Deep South, and the Great White North…so just what the fuck is the East called anyways? The Slow Coast? This I just had to discover for myself.

So with this excited anticipation, the plan was formulated to drive cross-country from St. Catharines, Ontario all the way to Antigonish, Nova Scotia to attend this years Evolve Festival for three days – a total of 4,217 km’s round trip. Only a mere drop in the bucket for most truckee’s, but an eternity behind the wheel for me. But what better way to see the country firsthand. Plus, it will be nice for once to make the whole trip all within my own country’s borders and not have to worry about being held up at the border while Custom’s officials run lab tests on my baloney sandwich.

Also among the firsts in this vacation for me was the opportunity to travel with a female companion for an overly extended period of time. Surely this in itself would prove to be a valuable lesson in life whether it be either positive or negative in result. For a devout single bachelor such as myself, committing oneself to spending large amounts of time in a cramped compartment with a member of the fairer sex while cruising at 120km/hr is quite an experience just in itself. Traveling with another male (as was originally the plan) is no problem at all and would be the much more natural of situations to deal with. We would just burp the alphabet, play “Name that Fart”, and pass the time by scratching our packages and inventing new descriptive adjectives to insult other drivers with – simple. However, in the presence of a female, as cool as she may be, things are bound to be a bit more complex – or so I had thought at the time. To ensure as successful a journey as possible, my “Prime Directive” in essence had become to make my female companion as comfortable as humanly possible. Sure it meant that I had to relinquish certain amounts of my masculinity; but what the hell. Besides the chance that I could be cornered into a lengthy detailed conversation developing ovaries and ultimately careening the vehicle headlong into an oncoming tractor trailer in a sudden pre-menopausal meltdown, or the stopping every 20 minutes or so to drain puny, weak female bladders, what did I have to lose? The deal had been sealed. Albeit, there would have to be some minor alterations* made to the journey’s preparation and planning stages prior to the car trip itself. But I pride myself on being an accommodating and adaptable kind of fella; so I could deal with that.

For example, it wouldn’t be uncommon for two dudes to just throw their shit in the backseat, pin up a road map to the dashboard, and hit the road willy-nilly, and propel ourselves on nothing but greasy roadside burgers and Styrofoam cups of highly-caffeinated coffee. But with a female in the passenger seat, it’s a different ball of wax altogether. Now, instead, you have to spend on entire afternoon organizing the car to comfortably accommodate the bevy of books, guides, cosmetic bags, purses, lotions, balms, napkins, Handy-Wipes, snacks, sweaters, jacket, pillows, box of Power Bars, travel beverage, special clear condensation-free Algina water bottle, etc, necessary for the trip. Heaven’s forbid, vital travel provisions should be out of immediate arms reach. I’m surprised she didn’t go so far as to enlist the television crew from Trading spaces to do a complete auto-makeover on the entire front seats! Also, instead of surviving on those curbside fast food surprises, we now have an assortment of breakfast bars, rice cakes, granola mix, and even fresh fruit for fuck sakes. How unmanly is that? Likewise, since my female companion also happens to be on a diet (God bless her britches), our weekend’s worth of camping supplies were a bit more planned out than I am normally accustomed to. Instead of the usual package of hot dogs and case of cheap-ass canned beer, I have to contend with veggie burgers, bean sprouts, tabouli, carrot sticks, and cubed watermelon. I could survive months on that kind of bounty! My only real fear is that all this healthy eating will be a shock to my rugged, manly, outdoor persona and serve to have my bowels working inconveniently overtime. Nothing says “out the way, it’s a’ coming!” while on a dead sprint across the festival grounds in the direction of the porto-potties like a spicy mango chutney and salsa wrap. With no handy hot dog buns to sop up all the acquired grease and intoxicants in my digestive system, I feel a bit trepidatious about being a possible loaded weapon ready to go off in a heartbeat. But, c’est la vie…who doesn’t mind a little Russian Roulette with their bowels once in a while? It’s a journey of firsts after all.

Since this substitution for a female companion occurred, I also noticed a significant difference in the camping equipment that I was planning on bringing. Since the time I was still expecting to travel with another male friend, and in keeping with the established Prime Directive, the pile of camping supplies and geegaws accumulating in the middle of my living room floor almost quadrupled in size**. We now had two tents, blow-up mattresses, bedding, shower stuff, toiletry items, lanterns, flashlights, batteries, camping grill, propane tanks, cooking equipment, food cooler, beverage cooler, lawn chairs, knapsacks, a complete beading kit; shit, throw in a television set and central air conditioning and I wouldn't even have to leave my apartment in the first place. Red Green would be ashamed of me! Life was so much easier to plan for when I was just expecting to show up bleary-eyed and road-weary, party like a Greek god, and just simply drop in the dust and pass out with my flashlight stuck up my ass. Now, it’s all “UV sunblock-this” and “Cocoa Butter-that”. I even had a shopping bag full of pre-cut garden salad for fuck sakes! Aren’t there enough twigs, roots and berries in nature to provide for salad if truly necessary as it is? My little jaunt up and down the side of a mountain taught me that on another trip.

Doesn’t anyone eat hot dogs anymore? I implore you!

It was all a bit overwhelming to me at first, I admit. I almost lost my cool regarding the spicy cucumber dip, and then again with the matching flannel sheets, but I was able to maintain my excitement and was still anxious to get moving and see the odometer flicking in front of me like Multiplication Table flash cards. So, after fueling up on caffeine at Tim Horton’s and safely securing away my adequate stores of pot within easy grasp, thus began our journey to the promised land of coastal shores, lobster, and people who…talk…really…slow…eh.

And we peeled out onto Hwy 406, Timmy's in hand, with the Beta Band blasting on our rental car stereo. The early morning sunshine that cascaded through the windshield in front of us before breaking into a kaleidoscope of color fractiles on the dashboard promised only adventure.

"If there's something inside that you wanna say
Say it out loud it'll be okay
I will be your light
I will be your light
I will be your light
I will be your light"

(to be continued...)

* And by “minor adjustments”, I mean minor adjustments on par with attempting to remodel the Sistine Chapel with salmon drapes and a mirror ball.

** Less than two weeks in total.

"Saaaay, REFUGEE!"

So, now that the crisis in the southern Gulf States is a little over a week into it’s disaster relief, the media focus has now rightfully shifted it’s focus from rescue updates to who exactly is to blame for this fiasco. It’s the natural order of the universe.

You can almost hear the clinking of dueling sabers behind closed cabinet doors as city, state and federal officials all try to simultaneously thwart public scrutiny. From the New Orleans mayor, Ray Nagrin, to Louisiana Governor, Kathleen Blanco; from Deputy Police Chief, W. J. Wiley, to Homeland Security Secretary, Michael Chertoff; from FEMA secretary, Michael D. Brown, to even the head bad cheese, ‘ol Dubya himself - everyone is out scurrying for cover in the aftermath of this hurricane disaster.

Rest assured, heads will roll. Mark my words.

However, there are a few individuals who, instead, are clamoring for the media spotlight and public attention during this chaotic time: celebrities. They're like mindless zombies being drawn to the alluring smell of fresh brains. I can’t stand these opportunistic sympathy mongers who thrive on the suffering of others in order to boost their own marketability. Why do we even let celebrities near disaster areas? These types of people are like ghouls, albeit nicey-nice ghouls rubbing shoulders and bouncing babies for the camera - but fucking ghouls nevertheless! Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jesse Jackson, George W. and Barbara Bush, Illinois Senator Barak Obama, Sean Penn*; even Oprah Winfrey pulled up to the Astrodome in her customized gas-guzzling, ozone-killing SUV to the chants of “Oprah! Oprah! Oprah!”

Why are they cheering Oprah? What is she going to do? You just know she was at home all wrapped up in a nice warm quilt made of thousand dollar bills and sipping on a hot cup of cocoa while Katrina was giving the Gulf Coast the blowjob of the century and tearing apart residential homes while people hunkered down for cover and kissed each others asses goodbye. What do we care if Oprah wants a public apology? Who gives a shit WHAT Oprah wants? She wasn’t even fucking there!

And, who is this Senator Barak Obama anyways? Should we even be letting anyone named “Obama” anywhere near a disaster zone, much less electing them to State Office? Go home and quit mugging for the camera asshole and we’ll call you when something happens to the corn.

As for the ex-presidents (and ex-president wannabe’s) who are spearheading fundraising efforts to assist disaster victims and refugees, sure they’re doing something fruitful, but why are they campaigning in the disaster areas themselves? What are they going to collect there? Need I remind everybody that these people lost everything! Even Barbara Bush, looking more like Lovey from 'Gilligan’s Island' every day, got into the action in front of the snapping cameras and commented on the hurricane disaster situation as a success for the numbers of evacuees staying in the Astrodome who “…you know, were underprivileged anyway.” Atta’ girl, sweetheart - that’s telling it like it is. Those people should be thankful for the upgrade they received in life. In a way, Hurricane Katrina saved them from their own destitution. Hey, buy them all a hotdog and they’ll be happier than pigs in shit, right? Somebody bitch-slap this old broad.

I think as an immediate deterrent to other celebrity photo-op seekers, all unnecessary celebrities** should be rounded up and left in downtown New Orleans to be dealt with by the marauding hordes of armed lawless bandits running amok in the streets like diseased hyenas. These are the jackasses we should be looting and pillaging! We should set an example now and put an immediate and vicious stop to all this senseless celebrity vanity so we can really focus on what’s important, before we all have to endear Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins performing a tearful duet together of “Let the Good Times Roll” from a rubber dingy outside City Hall.

* Who in a mighty display of selfless heroism, managed to rescue two people from relatively dry ground and move them to even drier ground. Way to go, I Am Sam. Keep up the great work!

** And by “unnecessary celebrities”, I mean ALL celebrities except Angelina Jolie, because she’s hot and she can go any fucking where she pleases!

"I'm fixing a hole where the junkies came in..."

Allow me to go all asshole-personified for a moment; I have just heard that city officials in Vancouver are prepared to implement a new program aimed to aid and assist the city’s ever-increasing growing number of addicts, crippled and blinded by their drug use and too sick to shoot themselves up, to be helped by a volunteer team of users to get high safely.

WTF?

So, if you’re too fucked up by your own illegal addiction then you’ll be provided with your own personal drug valet to cook up your fixes for you? Getting druggies to shoot up other worse off druggies. How in the fuck does that make any sense? Isn’t that a bit like putting out fire with gasoline?

Forty members of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) will be patrolling the Downtown Eastside, a slum and open market that teems with disease, offering injection education and assistance. Hey, isn’t that swell? So, first we provided homeless addicts with Interact swipe machines* in order to collect money while panhandling on street corners from our debit cards and credit cards and now we’re helping them inject their drugs too? Wow, how great it must be to be a down and out junkie on the streets of Vancouver! Let's build them a luxury resort with tennis courts and a pool! Shit, I may even just retire there.

But where does it all end? Are we next going to start providing them with all their drugs as well, or how about just getting high for them while we’re fucking at it? Why not after all, since we’re already going through all the trouble of making sure they have no problem acquiring and doing their drugs? Let’s at least be thorough.

DRUGS FOR EVERYBODY!

I just don’t understand it. So now, instead of feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and providing for the unemployed, among other serious and worthy charitable foundations, my hard-earned tax-payers dollars have also now been ear-marked for assisting lazy addicts get their fixes? Fuck that! If they want to be high so bad, they should be least able to get themselves that way without assistance from anybody – much less from an official city-sanctioned deputized junkie. If these morons brains are too fried out to know that they need to stop doing their destructive habits lest they should end with the same life functions as a carrot – LET THEM!

Shit, I say hand out more fucking dope and rusty needles! They’re only just going to be eventually weeded out as part of the natural selection process anyways. Why prolong the inevitable? The only “injection education and assistance” I’d like to offer would be a blunt object to the back of the head to put them out of their misery. Besides, what more “injection education and assistance” do you need beyond shouting: “STOP DOING FUCKING DRUGS YOU SMELLY, LICE-RIDDEN WASTE-OF-LIFE”! I’m sure as shit not going to start heating up their spoons for them and assist them in the further fucking up of their lives!

Supporters claim that most of the stats show that people who are incapable of injecting themselves or have a hard time have the highest rate of HIV. Well, yeah, DUH! That’s because they’re helpless useless junkies who have all but killed off their very souls for smack, crack, crank, whatever, eons ago. Why are we still making it so easy and cushy for them to be a drug addict? How is that helping lower the number of strung out addicts populating Vancouver any? We should be offering them either rehab, hard time, or have a train run on them in a back alley behind some Eastside crackhouse by a group of other desperate and crazed street junkies. That’s bound to set them straight on "injection education and assistance".

* Yep! We did, in yet another unpresidented hallmark of human stupidity.