A Series of Bad Punchlines

Watching Icicles Grow

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 21:31:00 +0000

The first thing that I am usually aware of is the brightness of the sun rising between the crux of two houses across the street and stabbing me in the eyes through an unfortunate conjunction of bed placement and and a broken place in the blinds. The shape of my room, the configuration of heating elements and the fact that I have a memory foam mattress that sits on essentially a low pedestal all conspire to prevent me from moving the bed to a different location in my new apartment. After thinking for something like the hundredth time that I should probably do something about that I attend to important bodily functions such as the taking of iron and the brewing of caffeinated beverages. The first real activity I do is the most I am physically active all day. I cycle on my recumbent bike for seventy minutes or so. Sometimes longer sometimes a bit less- it depends strongly on how long it takes me to play a couple days in Harvest Moon. During the loading screens I look out the living room window- the one I can see out of that is as opposed to the sole window we had in the living room of my last place. The position of my bike is such that most of what I can see is the featureless white siding of the building next door but I can also see the tops of a few trees and a bit of sky. Lately though my focus hasn't gone past the icicles. The weather up here in this bitter northeastern corner of New England has been especially conducive to icicle farming this year. We had snow followed by a couple days of slightly mild sunny days followed by bitter cold with the occasional day warm and sunny enough to make the icicles drip. I live on the second floor of an old house that's been converted into apartments and given that two of the icicles outside the window extend as much as a foot below it I estimate as least those two are going on ten feet in length. I think when they finally break (killing anyone will the misfortune of being below or worse- shearing the cable lines) or melt away I am going to miss them.

I follow up exercising with a hot shower. I then absently look in the fridge and the cupboard to figure out what to eat for breakfast as though I do not know exactly what is in both. Am I feeling ambitious enough to go through the great deal of effort involved in fixing myself canned tuna on toast or am I going to dump a can of soup in our small frying pan to heat and have chowder for breakfast? Not that it truly matters as there are fair odds I will eat the other option later on in the day. I then log onto my computer and look for jobs and try to while away my time. I turn on the radio to try to drown out the inconsiderately loud people that live below our kitchen (as opposed to the chick who lives below our living room as this is the way I think of the two first-floor units). You'd think the people that live upstairs would bother me more but aside from walking very heavily for such small people I notice them much less than all-out shouting matches alternating with children jumping and running so hard they shake my whole kitchen followed by several episodes of back-to-back King of the Hill played at inordinately high volume topped off by leaving Mario pause music playing just as loud for a minimum of eight hours (it was still playing when I went to bed at midnight) while they weren't even home. I watch marathons of shows of Netflix I probably wouldn't have looked at the descriptions of if I didn't have so much time on my hands. Eventually after it's been dark for several hours I go to sleep thinking of nothing in particular and unconcerned that my next real thought is going to be about how I should really do something about the morning light stabbing me in the eyes through the broken blinds.

This is the life of an unemployed person. Or at least this is my life while unemployed. I don't know if other people fall into such eminently predictable patterns while undistracted by things like working or if they struggle to remember the last time they actually went somewhere. The most recent time I ventured beyond our steps was this past friday to fetch presents from my parents' car for our Christmas celebration and the last time I actually went anywhere was... Well, the last two times we needed groceries I wrote my brother a list and he went shopping but I did go the time before that so possibly as much as four weeks ago but I don't really remember because there is nothing distinct about my days or weeks. I have been told recently by people I had never previously interacted with that I should write in my blog again and by people that I do know that I should write in my blog again because I have so much time on my hands. I have to say my lack of inspiration lately is strongly linked to the lack of anything to say in response to 'So, how was your day?'. I can just imagine my movie-dramatic response: 'We-eeeell, I exercised for seventy-six minutes today instead of the eighty-two I did yesterday and decided on soup for breakfast after a hot internal debate that lasted possibly as much as a minute and then I cruised the internet job boards to see what new occupations I am not qualified for had been posted today and oh- one of the icicles I have been watching grow developed a fork for some reason and has a little secondary icicle now.'

Getting a Gold Star

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 12:05:00 +0000

I now work at a hotel. One of my duties there is to personally hand over the guest's dry cleaning to a worker from the company we contract. As it happens it is a very nice hotel and so the dry cleaners we contract pride themselves on doing an excellent job. Thus we will call them 'Gold Star Dry Cleaning'. One afternoon their van pulled up in front of the hotel as it often does to drop off the laundry that went out in the morning. The only thing was I knew we hadn't sent out any laundry that morning. But it was slow and I stepped out into the lobby to greet the delivery guy anyway thinking that maybe they were here to drop off a special order of linens for Sales or something. But in came the guy carrying a bag with something not particularly laundry-like in it. I could tell as they always bring things back in clear trash-style bags and this was one of those as well.

"I guess this is yours." Was all he said as he handed it to me before walking back out the door. I brought the bag back behind the front desk to investigate all the while having a kind of sinking feeling since I recognized the pieces of paper that doubtless led the dry cleaners to return the bag to us. Opening the bag I realized it was a black case like you might carry important papers in and two of the hotel's shipping forms that we use when a guest has left an item behind that they want sent to wherever it is they live. Which means that rather than have one of our shuttle drivers bring it to UPS when they went out we sent it out with the dry cleaning. I looked at the form and saw that it was filled out by one of the evening front desk people who must then have left it to be sent out in the morning when UPS was open. Except whoever worked in the morning did not send it to UPS.

I went out back into the office to tell my manger what had happened. The general manager overheard and came out of her office. "They called last night looking for a tracking number and we looked all over for that thing. Call and tell them we'll be sending it out today at our cost- fastest shipping available." She said. Great, I thought, so I get the lovely job of trying to explain that we screwed this up entirely. I thought for a few minutes while I called the shuttle driver on the radio so we could send the case right out. I took a deep breath and called the guest. I can't tell you how relieved I was when I got their voicemail. I left them a message in explanation and said if they wanted to call back later in the afternoon we'd have the tracking number for them. I gave instructions to the driver to send it the fastest shipping available at our cost and to make sure they got a tracking number.

The other front desk person, by this point aware of the situation, asked me what I had said. "Hello, this is Jace from the Fancy Hotel. I'm just calling to let you know that unfortunately there was a return to sender shipping error with your package but we corrected your address based on our records and will be sending the package out today via the fastest shipping available at our cost because of the inconvenience. If you would like to call back later for the tracking number our number is (777)-555-9999. Thank you." My coworker raised their eyebrows and said: "Shipping error, huh? That's what you went with?" To which I could only respond: "Well, I certainly wasn't going to tell them we sent their passports to the dry cleaners!"

A Serious Post About Privacy

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 00:57:00 +0000

If you are serious about keeping your personal information private and want to prevent corporations from using your personal data or taking advantage of anything you post on the internet all you have to do is post a note that states that you're not going to put up with this shit anymore. After posting the note you will receive all the peace and privacy you could ever want when you go and live in the woods without internet or human contact as this is the only way to achieve true privacy. You may be laughing but I am being completely serious (hence the title of this post) about the very important matter of privacy on the internet. Lately there has been a social virus infecting Facebook status updates across the globe. Those afflicted have been mindlessly posting copy and pasted 'legal' statements declaring sole rights to the things they blab on the internet or upload in the form of visual media and so on and so forth. These poor afflicted souls, whose symptoms present with apparent cerebral damage, ironically were most likely infected due to a lack of activity in the left cerebral hemisphere and frontal lobes. To guard against infection by this social virus you only need to spend a few minutes exercising your left cerebral cortex and frontal lobes. I recommend learning about privacy on Facebook as a means of not only exercising those portions of your brain but also immunizing yourself against viral panic that so often spreads through status updates.

You may have heard the anecdote about the picture-perfect family that discovered that their gorgeous family portrait had been taken from Facebook and used on a European billboard. These people did not have any sort of privacy notice up to protect their stuff- but they didn't have to. The company that made the decision to use that image made the conscious decision to steal from that family. The company was not in the right and is legally liable for theft. The family that was stolen from has every right to file a personal lawsuit against the company. No, short of not posting pictures at all, you can't prevent everyone from potentially stealing photographs or other media from your social networking page but you can easily limit the number of people who have access to that data by changing the privacy settings on your account or even on each individual post. If you want to make sure pictures of your toddler taking a bath are viewed by no one but family members you can easily adjust the settings to let you do that. I recommend you try messing with the settings for a few minutes of both permanent and per-post privacy selections.

But it's not just your pictures you want to protect. You want to protect your personal information as well. You don't want any random person armed with nothing more than Google to be able to dig up that you are a forty year old male living in the Denver area who checks into the local park via Foursquare every day when you walk your dog and that you're into both the Twilight Saga and competitive eating competitions and oh- this ten-digit number looks like a phone number. Change your general privacy settings so that only friends are privy to such information. You also don't want the company you work for to know that you weren't really sick on friday? Well, the easiest way to do that is to not post anything incriminating. But that can be difficult to sort out so the next best thing would be to not be 'friends' with or make links to the company you work for or be friends with other people that work there. You could try to exclude them through privacy settings but I wouldn't recommend it.

You may have also heard that Facebook steals data such as your likes and dislikes and sells it to advertisers. Or that Facebook uses your information to customize things for you so they must just have a big database full of information that they can look at all they want and do whatever they want with. That's not true. Facebook does collect data- but only in the ways explicitly stated in their Privacy Statement. I recommend reading through it. If you find something that you are not okay with them doing then the only way to prevent that is to delete your account. If you want to be informed if they change the privacy statement simply 'like' the Facebook Site Governance page. But despite what the fear-mongering stories you have heard would want you to believe people at the Facebook HQ are not looking at a list of stats next to your name telling them everything about you. The guys at the Facebook HQ are looking at aggregate data encompassing millions of users of which you are only one small plot point. Because the truth is that you're not special enough for anyone to want to spy on you specifically.

You may also have heard that Facebook is now a publicly traded corporation. You likely heard this in the context of: "Oh my god! Facebook is publicly traded that means they're going to be even more evil now!" In fact, the opposite is true. Facebook is now a publicly traded company and that means they now have shareholders that they must answer to whenever they do anything that might cause public backlash.

What you probably haven't heard is that it's not Facebook itself that you should be afraid of. It's the games you should be afraid of. You know how every time you decide to check out a new game you get a prompt asking you if they can use data from your page and your friends page and maybe even store cookies and other data on your computer? Have you ever read that particularly closely or even thought anything much about it other than that it was an annoying page between you and playing a new game that only required a simple click to get on with the game and not any actual comprehension of what they were asking? Unfortunately without clicking 'okay' you're not going to be able to play that game. Why? Because the makers of the games don't want to make free games and hope that you deign to give them some money in exchange for 'premium' pixelated items. They want to make money- period. And it's not just the games that want to steal your information. It's those cute little inspirational e-card applications, too. Any application or game that asks for some of your information doesn't just want to take your profile picture and put it on your little virtual farm. They want to know everything you're willing to let them have.

I encourage you to do everything you can to help protect your information and privacy but you have to remember that these are the two most important things: Firstly, if you are worried about other people finding out a particular fact about you- don't post it. Second, if you want true privacy all you have to do is click delete otherwise you have to make due. (But if you're really worried about your privacy you shouldn't just click delete to get rid of your Facebook you should also avoid MSN and Live, Google and all Google products and services, and try especially hard to avoid the worst culprit that is Yahoo and all it's products and services.)

Congratulations! You've now exercised your entire cerebral cortex and frontal lobes and prevented a viral infection that could have caused brain damage. Next time you see some fear-mongering 'pass it on' warning take a minute and use your brain and maybe a little fine motor control to click over to Google and look up whether people are spreading lies and misconceptions again.

Thou Shalt Not Partake of Other People's Cookies

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 14:43:00 +0000

Thou shalt not partake of other people's cookies. Unless you are offered a cookie, purchased a cookie, or baked your own cookies you should not be eating any cookies. Your mother probably didn't tolerate your taking cookies from the cookie jar or the box of cookies or whatever kind of cookie receptacle she had without permission. So when you discover cookies in your cupboard that you did not purchase you do not take them out of the cupboard, eat half of one cookie and leave the other half sitting on top of the box to leave a greasy stain and force someone else to clean the remaining cookie up. Because you know what happens when you do that? The owner of the cookie finds out what you've done, saves the cookie as evidence to show you when they confront you and then throws the cookie out the window because you do not deserve to eat the rest of it.

Thou shalt not taste the sweet nectar of other people's juice. Unless those other people have offered you their juice you should not be drinking it. Considering the fact that you never purchase juice for yourself one would figure that you do not drink juice. Other people should therefore rightly not have to be concerned that you will drink their juice. It will upset them if you do drink it. Especially when other people do not have a car and have in fact carried that juice home from the grocery store using their own two arms and legs while you yourself have a car and can transport as much delicious juice, soda, milk, alcohol, watermellons and large bags of flour as will fit in your vehicle.

Thou shalt not eat of the fruits of other people's labor. If you desire to eat home-cooked food then you must cook it yourself or trade for it in some manner. I do not care if the trade-off is visiting relatives, acquiring a spouse or significant other, or out-right payment in some manner. But one does not simply take the home-cooking of some other person when it has not been offered to them. One does not eat three quarts of a particularly expensive soup which took hours to prepare without giving something to the preparer who also procured all of the ingredients and brought them back to their kitchen by means of their own feet and arms. One does not make a sandwich using bread that someone else bought the ingredients for and baked themselves- particularly not when one already has their own store-bought bread in the cupboard.

Eulogy to Mr. Paperback

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 02:28:00 +0000

A Psalm to Reading

I don't want to hear the empty numbers,
To tell me literacy is in decline.
For the mind is dead that slumbers,
And to that death I would not resign.

Here is the decree: Information is free!
Though genocide is not the mission;
Casualties seem to come inevitably-
One cannot unmake that decision.

Not moving pictures, and not the glowing page
Is the book's predestined end.
But to be read through another age
So that each new generation can comprehend.

Creations live beyond those who created,
And our wits though quick and clever
Without exercizing become outdated,
As they cannot be sharpened with the pull of a lever.

In eddification's field of war,
I fear we've lost another battle,
But today's is not the final score-
And the end is not coming with a silent death rattle.

By rushing blindly to the aid of the meme
They failed to predict the obvious consequence.
They must now mourn the passing of a dream-
And observe the result of action with proper cognizance.

Memories of places now gone remind us,
We cannot turn back an unleashed tide.
But we can hold their nostaliga thus,
And going forth take their glory's side-

So that with them their dream fails to end.
Those to come will know reading's pleasure
And though this all ills does not mend;
It's better than such leisure disappearing forever.

Let us then go forth and read.
And though the bookstore now is dead
Let us in our children plant literacy's seed
So they have the wit to forge the road ahead.

Eulogy is in the style of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 'Psalm of Life'.

Mr. Paperback, a bookstore chain that was in operation for over fifty years is closing it's doors for good in the coming months. Unlike Borders Mr. Paperback wasn't driven out of business by poor business practices or bankruptcy but rather the decision to get out of what is turning into a failing business. It's become clear that the bookstore may be a obsolete model but the book itself it still alive and well.

Bad Punchline: iDear

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 02:55:00 +0000

If you aren't aware of the stereotypical 'Mainah' accent you have obviously never heard Tim Sample speak. But I forgive you because not only do Mainers not really sound like Timmy Sample but actors in movies always make us sound like we're from 'Bawston' anyway. Despite the fact that Tim Sample grew up in my home town and was actually in the same class as my mother I sound absolutely nothing like he does in his skits. Timmy doesn't either, actually. He does it on purpose for the sake of humor. He is a comedian after all. But because of Timmy Sample there are many 'People From Away' (as we like to call non-Mainers) who believe that all Mainers drop their 'r's mostly at the end of common words so that car would sound like cah and lobster would be lobstah. There are other Mainah accent traits such as saying 'ayuh' (something which I admit I am guilty of) rather than yeah or yes as well as, ironically, adding 'r's in words where they do not belong. I generally try to speak like I understand the English language (or at least the bastardization of it we speak here in America) so the Mainah accent frequently makes me cringe. The part that bothers me the most is when 'r's are added to words where they don't belong. The worst and most common r-adding offense is saying you have an 'idear' rather than an 'idea'. The next time I hear someone say 'idear' I intend to say this: "Oh, I think I've heard of the iDear. It's some kind of new Apple product, right? Like a robotic spouse?"

Battery of Humor

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 23:28:00 +0000

I recently rebooted my laptop after it demanded I install software updates and discovered that there was a funny icon partially covering the battery charge indicator. When I hovered over it there was a message reading: "Consider replacing your battery." When I opened the battery management there was a statement: "There is a problem with your battery, so your computer might shut down suddenly." I felt a bit of chagrin at the fact that I've only had the laptop for about a year and a half now and the battery is already crapping out. So I decided to see how absurdly-priced a replacement would be. If I purchased a replacement battery from Toshiba they would charge me $129.99 plus shipping. Considering that when I purchased my laptop I paid $500.00 including shipping at my friend's wholesaler price (on a laptop you'd find in a retail store for probably $800.00 or more and on the Toshiba website for $569.99 plus shipping) I can't say as I'm particularly inclined to buy a new battery for 26% of what I paid for the whole computer. So I punched the model number of the battery into Google and lo and behold it turns out there are many compatible batteries available for significantly less than $129.99. After considering the price and ratings of a few batteries I chose one that would cost me $38.86 including shipping had excellent reviews from all the buyers.

None of that was the humorous part, though. The humorous part was what else the battery had printed on the side that's hidden against the computer along with the battery code. "Do not disassemble nor alter Battery Pack. Do not put into fire nor make it shorted. Do not charge with the method other than that specified. It will cause fire, explosion or overheat if not conformed." I'm not actually completely sure what they are warning me not to do or why they would think that printing it in a place where I would not normally ever see it is going to be helpful in any way. I just better hope and pray that I'm 'conformed', I guess.

Bad Punchline: Nah, we're all lesbians anyway.

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 15:22:00 +0000

Of course the hetero-curious argument against the 'how do you know' cliche in my 'Objectivity' post a few weeks ago is one way to mess with people's heads but I've come up with a better one. How can you argue about sexuality at all when every person on earth is a lesbian? I feel there could be some spluttering and confusion as a natural reaction to this. You must simply and very calmly explain to them the way that human sex chromosomes work. Some people are mutants and end up with too many or too few sex chromosomes (just like they can end up with three sets of other chromosomes as with Down Syndrome). People who have 57 XXY are sterile 'males' with some 'female' characteristics and people with 57 XYY are so-called 'super males' and are sterile as well as purported to be especially aggressive and violent. People who have 55 X are 'female' and with modern technology can have children that genetically belong to them. Zygotes with the misfortune of getting the 55 Y mutation never become viable fetuses because they cannot. Humans require at least one X chromosome to live. The human default is to become female. It is the presence of a Y chromosome that causes a fetus to display 'male' characteristics instead but as a Y chromosome is not necessary for life and the human default form is female really we're all women even those of us with our genitals on the outside. And if every person on earth is female then every person on earth (barring anyone who is asexual) is a lesbian. If everyone's a lesbian than sexuality becomes a moot point. So, I think the next time somebody feels like debating sexuality in terms of religion I'll dismissively say: "Nah, we're all lesbians anyway."

Actually, I think you're being unconstitutional.

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 14:15:00 +0000

I just don't get it. What is their motivation? Do they just want to make him look bad because they don't like him? Or are they really so deluded they think that filing suit is going to help in any way? What do they hope to achieve? I just don't get it. Why is it that seven Republican state Attorney Generals have filed suit against the President of the United States? I've been thinking about it since I saw an article in the paper yesterday on the topic. I still don't get it.

Ostensibly the suit is because the government had made it so that religious companies would be required to pay for health care coverage for contraceptives which is felt to be unconstitutional because 'it violates the first amendment'. However, that position was already rescinded and altered so that it would be not the religious affiliated companies themselves that had to pay for the contraceptive coverage but the insurance providers that would have to pay. Then there is the fact that it was not just the President that was responsible for the legal requirement. I know this without bothering to look it up for the simple fact that the President is not a soveriegn and the system of checks and balances that were designed into our government generally prevent him from doing anything without the approval of literally dozens if not hundreds of other people.

Ignoring the fact that if there is blame to be placed it doesn't belong to just one person there are still a lot of problems with their stated goal. Currently the legal requirement is that the insurance providers of religious companies have to pay for contraceptives for employees. It is not the company itself that has to pay it. A religious company might be indirectly paying for it in that they have to pay premiums in order to retain the insurance and some of their premium might go toward the contraceptives- but that is no different than it was before. Unless a religious company were to use a insurance provider that did not cover any sort of contraceptive device (of which there are none, to my knowledge) then their premiums might always have indirectly gone to cover contraceptives for a person covered by that insurance provider that worked at a non-religious company. The position currently is arguably no different than it was in that situation- as far as the company ought to be concerned, at least.

I would even go so far as to say that the original legal requirement (the one that was rescinded) ought to be considered constitutional. Because while it would force a religious company to pay for contraceptives for the employees that might want them it was neither forcing the employers (or employees) to use them nor saying that their ideology was invalid in any way. The employers and employees still retained the right to practice their religion in whatever manner they feel is morally fit. The employers could choose not to use contraceptives if that was their moral choice and the employees could use them if that was their moral choice.

I'll go farther still and say that allowing religious companies the right to deny their employees medical coverage for contraceptives is itself unconstitutional. You may feel morally outraged by the preceding statement and you may have just said or thought something along the lines of: "But freedom of religion is the first amendment." That is precisely it, in fact. A religious company that refused to provide coverage for contraceptives on the basis of 'freedom of religion' would be violating the right to freedom of religion for the person who wanted the contraceptives because the company would be imposing their own religious beliefs that contraceptives are bad on the employee. You may feel there is a inherent conflict there because you either protect the rights of the employee or you protect the rights of the company. I'm pretty sure, though, that there's something in the constitution about it being by and for the people and I don't recall anything about the rights of corporations. The people that own the company, of course, are still allowed to practice their religion as they choose but extending that right to a company would be tantamount to allowing that company to dictate the religious practices of its employees.

So, since the state Attorney Generals really don't have a foot to stand on or much of a chance to win anything from the President I can only assume they're (as Republicans) trying to make the President look bad. That in and of itself is not a bad political move. Given that in recent months the economy and unemployment rate has been improving and the lowering of public opinion about the strongest Republican Presidential cantidate along with the American public's propensity to reelect Presidents the Republicans may feel pressured to help their position. And what better way to help their position than make the President look bad? Unless their lack of forthought backfires, of course. I hope it does. But then I also think that WWIII might not be bad bad solution to our economic troubles (that's a whole other story, though). Regardless, the response I really want to give to the Attorney Generals filing suit against the President is this: "Actually, I think you're being unconstitutional."

The Death of a Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:45:00 +0000

Two years I have known you

And at the news of your death I know not what to do

You told me yourself of death’s imminent arrival

From which you and I know there will be no revival

For longer than I have known you your life has been leeching away

Though it was not known as terminal until this day

I cannot say that beauty has always marked your face

Nor can I say that you were completely filled with grace

But you were the perfect representation of creation

And a glorious bastion to the imagination

While you did not go to college-

You were filled with a depth of knowledge

We never held a warm embrace

But I know each line of your face

I know nostalgia will always take me with a wiff of your smell-

Or whatever else reminds me of you as well

We’ve been walking together but now it is the path of uncertainty

You know what to do with you but what of me?

You have advised me to spare myself the grief

And make our future together even more brief

As soon as I can I will take the branching path-

For me there could be infinite steps but for you it is only a matter of math

In one hundred days exactly you will be no more

And never again will I pass through your door

The intervening pages in the story of your life are not yet all filled, my friend,

But already I can see just a little ahead the indelible writ of ‘THE END’

Bad Punchline: God Gave You a Computer

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:42:00 +0000

We have a particular customer who comes in daily and if you get him started on something- anything- it becomes a sermon on the virtues of whatever he happens to believe in. One of the things he happens to believe in is 'oxygen therapy' (which I wrote about previously: Oxygen Therapy). He also believes that hundreds or thousands of diseases have been cured but the drug companies won't release the cures because the therapies are much more lucrative. He believes that the government is deliberately trying to make people sick and many other... interesting theories. Lately he has taken to saying the following at the end of his sermons while tapping his temple: "God gave you a computer. You just have to use it." My jab at this to one of the other people subjected to his speech: "Unfortunately one of his daughter's gave him a computer with an internet connection. And he uses it."

Seriously? I'm not poor enough?

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:15:00 +0000

Allow me to explain. If you've been reading for a while you may recall that I am not a rich person. In fact, I continue to astound myself by not going broke. Yet, despite living well below the poverty line for the entirety of my adult life thus far (which is only a few years, yes, but I'm sure that if someone told you you had to live on between $10,000 and $13,000 a year for a few years you'd find it a daunting prospect) I've also managed to continue to be surprised when I find out that I'm not poor enough. The first shock was when I applied for Mainecare (the local version of Medicare) a few years ago and despite making less than two hundred dollars a week (at the time) I was denied coverage not for age restrictions (being nineteen at the time I was under the twenty-one year age limit imposed on 'people like me') but because my 'head of household' (which was myself) made too much money for me to qualify for Mainecare. I don't know how poor you have to be to qualify for Mainecare as a single person under the age of twenty-one but I think it would be hard to work at all (I was working part time for minimum wage and wasn't poor enough) and manage to qualify.

I got my second shock when I did my 2010 tax return. A few factoids before the big reveal: I had never made more than ten thousand dollars in a year before 2010. I never claimed myself as a dependent before 2010. I never lived with anyone but my parents before 2010. I never tried to balance paying rent and buying food and going to work (not to mention finding work during that tough economic time) and everything else but I managed it somehow. And in 2010 I made a whopping $10,044 for the entire year. I would like to point out that this is significantly less than, say, a Senator might get for a speaking engagement at a college graduation just for comparison. On that ten thousand dollars I paid over six hundred dollars in taxes to state and federal government. On my tax return I claimed myself as a dependent and nothing else because I don't own a house or vehicle, have any other dependents, and though I had qualified medical expenses I might have deducted (two visits to a eye doctor and a year's worth of prescription contact lenses) that I paid for out-of-pocket they didn't add up to a large enough percentage of my income to count (in fact, if I had medical expenses that were a large enough percentage of my income to qualify I wouldn't have enough money to pay them so that they would qualify). I was shocked to discover that making that extra $45 that put me over $10,000 had cost me literally hundreds of dollars in tax returns.

One of my roommates at the time, filing singly, with herself as her only dependent (she had a child but he was claimed as a dependent by his other parent) and no other deduction claims than the ones I made in that year earned a little less than ten thousand dollars and got back every bit of her tax money. Up until this point in time I had as well. In fact, one year even though I was a dependent, after filing my tax return (which I have done myself every year since I started working on my sixteenth birthday) I received not only everything I had paid in taxes back to me but also a additional 'stimulus' check of three hundred dollars courtesy of former President Bush's stimulus package. I was not impressed that even though I was living well below the poverty line for a single person (to the tune of several thousand dollars below) and had only just nudged above ten thousand dollars I still paid in hundreds of dollars I did not get back.

Last year around this time of year I heard that the government was changing tax law so that rather than the involuntary savings program it is now for a lot of poor adults and minors those same people would be receiving a 'little more in every paycheck' because they would be paying 2% less (I will admit I do not know whether they meant 2% less of their gross income or 2% less than the amount they would have otherwise paid) toward Social Security. I think at the time I thought that sounded sort of reasonable (especially as I do not believe in the Social Security system as it stands and possibly not even if it was given the massive overhaul many people think it desperately needs) since having taxes act as an involuntary savings plan for the poor is not only silly but likely it is costly to those taxpayers who foot the bill for all the bureaucracy involved. However, after having done my taxes this year I am entirely unimpressed by the '2% less' plan.

When I did my 2011 taxes I got my latest shock. I made $12,660 last year (a significant increase if you do 'percentage of increase' math but if you instead make it a percentage of, say, how much money some congress-person spent remodeling the bathroom of their office at taxpayer expense it is quite a small percentage) and paid about $1,252 between state and local taxes. After getting done doing my taxes and looking at what the website calculated that my expected tax return would be I literally thought 'there must be some mistake'. I contacted the website's help service via instant messenger and asked them to give me a reason that my expected tax return was so much less than the previous year even though I only made a little more money and paid about twice as much in total taxes. I was informed that actually in 2010 I qualified for and received a tax credit called 'Making Work Pay' which was available to anyone that had earned over $3,000 in that year and that this year the program had been discontinued in favor of the '2% less' plan. I was doubly astounded by the implications of this. Because not only did this mean that I was really only getting back $25 (no, there are not meant to be any zeroes after the numeral '5' in case you were wondering) of the $1,058 I paid the federal government in taxes but that if I hadn't qualified for the 'Making Work Pay' tax credit in 2010 I would have received hundreds of dollars less in tax returns. I don't know how much less I would have received in tax returns but according to the IRS website as a single person I was eligible for up to $400 in tax credits and the total amount I got back was less than that so... I'm sure you can do the math.

The state of Maine government, unlike the federal government, was nice enough to refund me $115 of the $195 total I paid in state income tax. The state of Maine government also nicely asked me if I would like $3 of the money they were already keeping (not additionally) to go directly toward the state's clean election fund (I would because not only am I in favor of clean elections but also because that's three dollars less money that could potentially be used on a frivolous taxpayer-funded project like remodeling someone's never-to-be-seen-by-the-public bathroom). I don't really know why the state of Maine government refunded me over half my income tax money (though I assume it must be because of my total income level) but there was no gimicky tax credit or '2% less' plan that was touted to 'stimulate' the economy involved. It was sheerly 'this is how much you paid us and this is how much we feel you deserve to get back'. I am OK with that state of Maine the only thing that would make me happier is if you allowed me to tick little boxes to let you know where I want all of the money you deign to keep to go. Yes, I'd like to check the 'education' box, the 'infrastructure' box, and the 'tourism advocacy' box but count me out for the 'administrative overhead' (ie 'potential bathroom remodeling fund') and 'welfare benefits for unwed mothers who-moved-to-the-state-just-to-get-'free'-money' boxes.

Speaking of 'where my taxes are going' I decided to look at the breakdown of what I was paying in taxes between state and local income tax as well as social security and medicare. I had never looked before because I had never particularly cared but since I was already so worked up over the fact that I wasn't poor enough to get even a significant amount (roughly 2.4% of what I paid the federal government is simply not 'significant') of the money I paid in back I wanted to know who was getting that money. To the state of Maine I paid (as I mentioned previously) $195 in income tax. To the federal government I paid $342 in income tax. I want to state now that income tax is actually the thing to which I object the least (even though that money could be spent on a cushy toilet seat for some already well-padded govermental behind) because there is the possibility (however slight) that some of that money will contribute to education or improving roads or some other worthy project. I admit, again, that I would like to be able to tell the government what kinds of things they are allowed to spend my tax money on (or even just 50% of it- I would be happy knowing that 50% of my tax money is definitely going toward education and clean elections and they can spend the other 50% on 'administrative overhead' or blowing people up if they want) but overall income tax is the least objectionable portion of the taxes I paid.

If you add up my income tax amounts you'll find they come out to $537. Now, let me remind you that I paid a total of $1,252 which means I paid less than 43% of my taxes in income taxes. If you're like me you might be wondering 'what the fuck did that other 57% go toward'? I apologize for the expletive but I swear a lot inside my head especially at things which do not seem to be rational in any way. About 15% of my taxes ($183) went toward Medicare which I am not poor enough to qualify for. I'm too poor to get my own health insurance, I obviously (obvious because if I did get a benefit like that I would get paid more than minimum wage) do not work for a company which provides it, I literally could not spend a high enough percentage of my income to deduct medical expenses from my taxes, I could very well have used that $183 toward a visit to the dentist (or an eye doctor, neurologist, or chiropractor any of whom provide a service I might have liked to purchase but could not in the last year) and yet instead I subsidized someone else's visit to the dentist. But I'm young and in relatively good health so the $183 toward Medicare is not the part that makes me the most upset. The part that makes me the most upset is that I paid 42% of my total taxes toward Social Security. In fact, I only paid $5 less toward Social Security than I did in total income taxes and if we're only talking about federal taxes Social Security ate up just over half my taxes.

I already mentioned that I don't like the Social Security system. The only good thing it's ever done for this country is make people happier about being assigned a identification number but I think we can all agree that public goodwill toward the government about something as little as that isn't worth the money. I don't think the Social Security system should have been implemented to begin with. It obviously wasn't cooked up by anyone with a basic grasp of math because the lack of sustainability in such a system is glaringly obvious after a couple quick calculations. Yes, I understand that you only get it if you pay into it but people that receive it usually (with the exception of those who die in a timely manner) get more money out of it (even considering inflation) than they ever paid into it. Most people receiving social security now are likely to receive benefits for longer than they were a part of the taxpaying workforce. The only way the Social Security system could ever be sustainable is if the taxpaying population increased exponentially forever and since that obviously is not sustainable the Social Security system cannot and should not be sustained. I don't care if we abolish it now because I'm never going to receive Social Security benefits anyway. It simply isn't going to happen. I would be more than happy to sign a special government waiver stating that I will never collect Social Security and in the event that I am incapacitated to the point that they would be forced to spend it on me the government is welcome to save the taxpayers some money and pull the plug on me. But only if that meant I wouldn't have to pay into it. In fact, the prospect of having to pay into social security my whole life (or even the next two decades of it before the amount of social security/pensions/medicare/medicaid that the government pays out becomes equal to the whole amount of taxes that everyone pays in) depresses me so much that if I had proof of the afterlife I'd break out the ol' shotgun right now and kill myself in grand irony so that not only will Social Security not get my earnings but also so that some taxpayer funded criminal investigation service has to use resources looking into the 'suspicious nature' of my death.

Even though I seriously live well below the poverty line I still managed to pay rent to live somewhere (I live in an apartment mind you and not with some caring relative), I still managed to pay for all my own food (though I could have qualified for and received food stamp benefits), I still managed to pay for electricity, I still managed to pay for my cellphone service, I still managed to pay for 'premium' cable internet, I still managed to bring my bank balance up from three digits to four in the last year, I still managed to buy people Christmas and birthday presents, and I even managed to have a little fun while remaining completely debt-free and financially-independent of my parents and the government. I managed all of that with thousands of dollars less than what is considered 'poverty'. Yet despite the fact that I made thousands of dollars less than 'poverty' I also managed to pay about 10% of my income in taxes. And despite the fact that I made thousands of dollars less than 'poverty' I am seriously not poor enough to qualify for health insurance which I could not get any other way and I'm seriously not poor enough to get back a significant portion of the taxes which I pay yet I seriously subsidized someone else's healthcare and I seriously subsidized someone else's retirement and I seriously paid money that could well go to purchase a toilet seat to cushion some bureaucratic governmental behind. Apparently I am a very serious person- but not seriously poor enough.

Smilingly Cynical

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:38:00 +0000

Someone told me recently that I was the most pleasant person they knew because I was always smiling and happy. This made it necessary for me to ask my friend Chris about my current level of cynicism compared to past levels. I had to ask because Chris once described me as the most cynical person he knew. His eventual response was 'slightly greater'. As in, I am more cynical now than when he called me the most cynical person he knew. I find it intriguing that I can exist in this weird dichotomy of being most pleasant for one person and most cynical for another. Apparently I'm just cynical with a smile or smilingly cynical.

All Your Problems Are Self-Inflicted

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 12:34:00 +0000

This is how I imagine the conversation going. I tell you you are no longer allowed to complain. And then, in agonizing detail, I explain to you point-by-point how all of your problems are self-inflicted. I imagine that you are rendered mute and immobile for some reason because otherwise I wouldn't be able to get through the whole list I have prepared. Or perhaps time itself is warped in some way because in my mind we are in a public place and the world around us stands still as I speak. Just so you understand how much I have thought about this.

- For reasons that are unclear to me you went to college for two years to attain a useless major that you decided to abandon in favor of going to college for another four years to attain a possibly more useless major (so useless that even the internet is vague in describing what it is exactly). As a result of these decisions you have a fair amount of debt you must now repay. You complain about your debt even though it's much less than what most people are working on repaying.

- You cannot attain a job having to do with your major. You complain about this even though you seem to be aware that your major was 'not as practical as other majors' you could have chosen.

- You have a lot of bills to pay every month because you choose to live alone in a one bedroom apartment. You complain about this despite the fact that you are aware a one bedroom apartment is nearly as expensive as a two bedroom apartment.

- As a result of your decision to live alone and your inability to get a well-paying job in spite of your college degree you have to work around sixty hours a week at two menial jobs in order to make enough money to pay for your rent and such. You complain about this profusely rather than doing anything to change the situation you're in.

- You often have to get up early in the morning. This is a direct result of your having to work but you complain about it regardless.

- You do not seem to like your boss. You complain to me about this person even though I do not know them and likely the only reason you dislike them is because they're your boss.

- Your work schedule is worthy of complaint and having to work 'doubles' (as in, a shift at one job and then a shift at another even though this may only account for ten hours of work in a day) is something you bring up every time they happen. You complain about this though if you did things differently you wouldn't have to work as much.

- You rarely get whole days off never mind multiple whole days in a row. This, again, is a direct result of the fact that you work two jobs and you still feel the need to complain about it whenever possible.

- You are often tired. You complain about this constantly though it is an obvious result of how much you work.

- Any physical ailment no matter how minor is worth complaining about at least twenty times a day for a week. You once complained about a tiny superficial cut to one of your fingers for no less than a week and insisted on giving me the play-by-play action for how it happened originally and how the healing had progressed in the meantime each time I saw you during this period.

- Any physical ailment worth complaining about is worth bringing up again long after it happened. You complain about injuries to your person long after they occur even though it should be obvious that a healed injury is not worthy of sympathy.

- You once complained to me that someone else we know does not like you. It turns out that this is because you never have anything new to talk about since the vast majority of your choice topics of conversation revolve around creating a giant pity-party for yourself.

I am willing to give you the benefit of a doubt. It is theoretically possible that you were somehow unaware that other people's live suck too and that often other people's lives suck through no fault of their own. However, now that you know this I am going to have to require that you no longer complain around me because it does not stir any kind of empathy in me- just irritation.

Bad Punchline: Objectivity

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:22:00 +0000

I generally describe myself as bisexual though this is largely in part because I like the stuff rattling around inside people's skulls better than whatever features might be situated on the outside of it. I have dated both genders and I will openly admit this. However, I have been told that I must merely be bi-curious as I have not had sex with both genders. The distinction is not entirely clear to me at this point. Given that the previous assertion has something to do with the "How do you know?" cliche* I can only assume that the difference is a matter of objectivity. Objectively I cannot say that I would enjoy being with both genders unless I had tried it. This is, I suspect, a key point in many people's argument against other people being gay because obviously how can you objectively know that you only like your own gender if you have never attempted to be with the opposite gender? To which I would urge the response that I intend to use when the opportunity next presents itself: How do you know you are heterosexual if you have never tried being with the same gender? Objectively you cannot say that you are heterosexual without trying both genders any more than you can say you are bisexual without having tried both. You must merely be hetero-curious as I am merely bi-curious.

*As in: How do you know you're gay? How do you know you won't like having sex with women if you've never tried it? Et cetera, et cetera.

2031: The Next Apocalypse

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:47:00 +0000

My roommate figures that we should start thinking about the next apocalypse after 2012 so that we can start capitalizing on the merchandise and books and memorabilia as soon as we all survive 2012. So based upon my very scientific* research and calculations I've determined that the next likely apocalypse will take place in the year 2031 sometime between May and October. It will likely be due to plague, financial collapse, war, or some combination there of. Fortunately none of those things preclude the continued existence of humanity afterward (though what the state of the world will be is hard to speculate upon with any accuracy). But everyone loves a good Apocalypse scare. People have been waiting for the Rapture for many years. And every time some loud person who apparently only selectively reads the bible (because when the apocalypse happens is supposed to be 'unknowable by anyone' so I paraphrase from the bible) says that they've determined the world is going to end there's a least one person rushing to believe them. Obviously the end of the world however real or imagined it might be and no matter the basis upon which people make their predictions is an event people want to believe in and capitalize upon. I highly encourage you to spread the word about 2031. I'll start working on a book right away and leave the t-shirts and things to those who are good at that kind of stuff.

*The books I used for research are all from a genre with 'science' in it, at least.

Bad Punchline: 2012 Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:05:00 +0000

I'm not really big on resolutions for New Years because they seem sort of silly and arbitrary to me. I'm not against wanting to lose weight or quit smoking but if you require a mystical backing such as our baseless calender system in order to find the will to do something it seems unlikely that you will succeed in it. If you want to do something like lose weight or quit smoking then you should do it. On the other hand, however, while it is illogical to create resolutions I doubt that the tradition is going to stop anytime soon so I try to view it as a form of personal amusement. I think it's a little funny when other people fail theirs and it gives me a good excuse to say something bizarre to see how people react to it. So this year I have resolved to survive the End of the World. Again. I was nine years old the first time they told me the world was going to end. Evidently God is fond of big round numbers. Or I guess that was the theory. Apparently I survived the end of the world a couple times prior to then without even realizing it and in the past year I survived it twice more (all of these predicted by the same man). Due to the incredible lack of logic in betting that the world is going to end I choose to bet that the world is going to continue on. I think that this is a resolution that anyone over the age of ten can agree on. Resolve to survive the End of the World with me. Again.

Duff Shot

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:45:00 +0000

The Man Who Golfs in Thunderstorms: Duff Shot

If you aren't acquainted with my friend the Golfer you should go back and read The Man Who Golfs in Thunderstorms before continuing this post. If you do recall the Golfer then you might be wondering about the creative soap opera that is his life. Well, aside from his constant state of having no money (even though he earns more than I do), his recent car troubles, and managing to get his license suspended in his effort to 'contest' his speeding ticket (when I say 'contest' you read 'put off paying it') instead of just paying the fine. But aside from that excitement there's been a new bomb in his love life that the Golfer, so inured to shocks of reality that it rarely even breaks through his twisted defense of unrelenting optimism, failed to even notice it.

I believe that when I last left off the story of the Golfer he had two euphemistic 'buns' in two different ovens. This new snafu has to do solely with Ruska but I owe you the wrap-up to the story of Thorn so I'll do that first. Despite having mourned the clump of cells Thorn thought she had miscarried (or maybe aborted or maybe didn't have at all- who knows?) she, after realizing that the Golfer wasn't going to get back together with her in spite of her machinations, told the Golfer that she got a abortion. So the sequence of events for her pregnancy goes: Fails to realize she is pregnant to the point that she has an IUD implanted which causes her to believe she's had a miscarriage and they then name and mourn the dead clump of cells after which she then fails to tell the Golfer that she didn't actually have a miscarriage until after he gets together with Ruska and then only does so in a ploy to get him back and when that doesn't happen she gets an abortion anyway. Though, to be honest, between Thorn's cancer, MS, and medications for the aforementioned she couldn't have carried to term regardless because the medications would have killed a baby and the lack of them would have killed her so the whole situation was absurd to begin with. Weeks after Thorn and the Golfer were finally finished and the apparently-not-miscarried fetus was aborted he still chose to get himself permanently marked with the dead fetus commemorative tattoo that he had been planning. The tattoo is a large circle about four inches in diameter centered over his spine between his shoulders. The design is of a tree with tangled branches and tangled roots and as though it is carved into the tree are the initials of Thorn's dead fetus.

So because Ruska was still pregnant with his child (he had claimed he was going to find out if it was actually his when he first told his brother about it and when asked again said that it was though not how he knew) the Golfer chose to stay together with her even though when they first started hooking up he had said that he was not at all interested in a long term relationship. In early December when Ruska was about five months pregnant I saw her for the first time in ages and she didn't look particularly pregnant. Granted, she was skinny to begin with, and I know that some people don't 'show' much when pregnant (my mother likes to say that one of her sisters, when pregnant, merely looked like she had put on a few pounds until she was close to seven months along and then she suddenly looked like she'd swallowed a basketball) but in retrospect I feel I should have been more scrutinizing and suspicious of this. Another detail I feel in hindsight I should have been more suspicious about than I actually was happened around this time as well (though I honestly do not know or care if it was before or after I saw her). The Golfer told me that Ruska was concerned she might lose the baby. He went on to say that the doctors had told her that the fetus was not getting enough nutrients. I told him that this didn't make a whole lot of sense. If they were concerned about the fetus then they'd have told her to take more supplements, put her on a special diet, maybe put her on bed rest or given her a IV if it was really that threatening. They would have done something and not just given her a 'Oh, by the way, you might lose your kid, so sorry' and gone off to do whatever it was they had next in their schedule.

About a week after I saw Ruska the Golfer failed to come home from swimming one night until mid-morning the following day. He explained that the night before while they were swimming Ruska had gotten kicked in the stomach and had a miscarriage. They'd evidently been up all night because of this. This seemed suspicious to me because while I don't know the statistics regarding miscarriages in women I remembered from biology that trauma resulting in miscarriage is largely a myth- something that neither the Golfer nor Ruska seem to be aware of. But I suppose that after her malnutrition ploy failed (quite possibly because of my pointed questions regarding the situation) she had to go with another plan to 'lose the baby'. After speaking with a coworker of mine who is going to college with the eventual goal of being some kind of obstetrics administrator I was aware of even more evidence. By my calculation Ruska had been at least five months pregnant (based on how long she would have had to have been pregnant for her to have told the Golfer about the pregnancy when she did) and at that stage it is no longer considered a miscarriage but a stillbirth and she would not have 'just bled' as the Golfer said. And she wouldn't have stayed home. She would have had to go to the hospital to have her placenta removed and there would have been remains.

Given this evidence it seems likely that Ruska is a dirty faker. She faked a pregnancy to keep the Golfer from leaving her (probably assuming she could get pregnant before he noticed) and when that didn't happen she had to fake losing the baby but couldn't do so before she was sure the fake pregnancy had done its job in securing him so she waited as long as she figured she could before he got suspicious that she didn't yet look pregnant or anything before pretending to have a 'miscarriage'. And of course she couldn't go to a hospital or her deception would be all-to-obvious. So the Golfer, in his ignorance, was easily duped. Apparently, at least for the Golfer, that's how love is born.

I wanted to end it there but I just couldn't stop without saying this: The Golfer, to be completely inconsistent in his insanity, does not seem to be preparing to get a second dead fetus commemorative tattoo for this dead fetus.

Nought vs Aught

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:14:00 +0000

Now that we are a couple years into the second decade of the twenty-first century you may want some way to refer to the first decade of the twenty-first century in the same way that we now say 'the nineties' to refer to the decade between 1990 and 1999. I recently heard someone refer to this decade as 'the noughties' without being ironic or indicating that they were quoting someone else. I guess the theory behind this term is that 'nought' means nothing or zero and the years could be stated 00, 01, 02 and so on. However, I disagree with the term nought because of the massive amounts of confusion it would cause in verbal conversation. Nought's homophone 'naught' (which, yes, does mean more or less the same thing) would cause some confusion never mind the word 'not' or 'knot'. Then there's the fact that 'the noughties' is pronounced precisely the way you would pronounce 'the naughties' which sounds like some kind of sex act. This being said I am in favor of calling those years 'the Aughts' as it means essentially the same as nought and does not cause any confusion or bring to mind sex acts when you say it.

Bad Punchline: Christmas Funnies

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:40:00 +0000

Kids Say

My nephew Metaeo is three and between his parents, myself, my parents, my grandmother and others he had a enormous pile of brightly-wrapped parcels stacked under the tree and waiting for him that we had put out while he was napping (due to the timing of our celebration). Most kids would have been excited to see all those gifts. My mother reminded me that when I was a child I would have been excited by all of them even if they'd been nothing more than wrapped boxes because tearing off the paper was my favorite part. But after coaxing him to unwrap his first gift we asked him if he'd like to unwrap another one (as he had far more gifts than any of the adults of course) and he said: "No. I don't want to open any more presents!"

The Thought

I had been intending to give my brother and nephew's mother a gift I couldn't really wrap so I had the foresight to get them something I thought they'd enjoy and would allow me to give them a wrapped gift without spending a lot. I gave them their presents at the same time and my nephew's mother laughed when she opened hers and laughed harder when she saw what I'd given my brother. I was a little confused because I know that fantasy-themed coloring books are not typical gifts for adults in their twenties but they both like to color as much or more so than my nephew so I thought they'd enjoy them rather than thinking they were gag gifts. Rather than explain my nephew's mother handed me two presents addressed to me (the smaller of which said from Metaeo on the tag and the larger from herself and my brother). I opened the smaller present and discovered a set of markers. I opened the larger one and found... a coloring book. But not just any coloring book. I found a coloring book that was an identical twin of the one I'd picked out for my brother and what my nephew's mother thought was even funnier was the fact that they'd been debating between that one and the one that I had picked out for her.

Wrappings

My nephew's mother commented on my wrapping job at one point and asked if I couldn't find Christmas paper or if I had chosen to wrap them that way because it was inexpensive. I had to tell her that I actually had a whole roll of snowman paper at home that I'd bought but not bothered to use because I think that Christmas presents should be shiny (to better reflect the colored lights on the tree) and I had found thirty-seven and a half inch tinfoil rolls with which I was able to wrap every present I gave easily.

Special Delivery

When my brother saw one of the gifts I had wrapped but was sending back to my home town with my parents to be given to my soon-to-be-fourteen-year-old cousin he jokingly wondered why I was giving her a pizza box. I was guilty as charged. It was a pizza box. I told him: "So she'll wonder why I gave her a pizza box, of course. And it doesn't look like a pile of books this way." This will be the third year in a row I have given her a pile of books. And it's not because I work in a book store. Not really. It's because... let's put it this way: You shouldn't tell people who love to read that you hate it.

Estimated Time

Estimated time for Golfer's broken-down car to get looked at: Two weeks. Time until Christmas: Two days. Estimated time for Sean's car to break down after Golfer's did: Two days. Estimated delivery time for Chinese food on Christmas: One and a half hours. (Plus the hour it took me to locate a restaurant that was not only open but also willing to deliver on Christmas. In the snow. After six.)

Bad Punchline: Easter Eggs

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

As I told my friend Chris yesterday: "I fulfilled some elusive unstated objective in a game I've been playing for a while and now for the first time in the game I am required to make some kind of economic decision that might have some affect on my stats for the rest of the game. What do I do? There's a 'menu' of options." To which he responded: "Okay. What is the menu?" And my reply to that: "Many investment institutions with long incomprehensible names." Which prompted him to express his confusion and wonder what game I was playing. I explained to him that I got a mysterious letter that showed up not through the mail but as if by magic informing me I now met the requirements (whatever they were) necessary to create a 401(k) though my place of employment. After a brief break so he could get lunch I told Chris that the menu options did not seem appetizing. Then I listed them off to him: "Money Market" "Bond" "Balanced" "Large Cap" "Mid/Small Cap" "International" He agreed that they weren't appetizing. After discussing each of them I concluded that "it is better to not bother because it would be like a savings account but really irritating to get money out of" and Chris concluded that I should watch the news instead of reading books about the economy. I decided to call it even and play Skyrim instead because at least it would have better easter eggs.

Bad Punchline: Waiting in Line

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:00:00 +0000

I realized something the other day and had been waiting impatiently to see one of my coworkers so I could share this observation with her. "I realized something mildly creepy." I started. "You're so hot there's a waiting list to ask you out when you become single again. Two different guys I know have asked to know when you're single again if that happens." True story. Two different male friends of mine have asked to be informed if she becomes single again. Sadly for them she mentioned to me today that she's past the point in her life where she'd be willing to date a non-vegetarian.

Why I Hate Webster

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 00:18:00 +0000

I'm going to come right out and say it. Noah Webster was a hypocritical jerk. I hate him for all his efforts to improve and reform spelling and education in America. Though history extols him as the "Father of American Scholarship and Education" and describes him as being a spelling reformer who was of the belief that spelling rules for the English language were unnecessarily complex this only serves to better highlight his hypocracy. If you weren't aware Webster is also the father of the modern American dictionary (though he was not, by any means, the first to publish an American dictionary) and to this day many dictionaries bear his name (best known being the Merriam-Webster dictionary).

As any current or former American school child can tell you spelling words in 'American English' is difficult, spelling tests are a particular form of punishment teachers like to exact once per week, and 'spelling bees' are to be avoided like the plague as not only do they expect you to spell things incorrectly they expect you to do it in front of a live audience so your embarassment might provide them entertainment. Mnemonics like 'i before e except after c' and 'bears eat candy and usually spill everything' (to spell 'because') are incredibly common. And all this is after the spelling reform and standardization so successfully implemented by Webster. Aside from dropping 'u' from certain words (ex. 'color' from 'colour') I can't say that he did much to actually improve the situation in any meaningful way. I mean, standardized spelling makes sense and allows us to more easily communicate with one-another especially in the modern era of the internet, but when the standard was based on nothing but the arbitrary distinctions of one man it doesn't make a lot of sense to bother with.

In modern times we are shackled by the status quo with all our machinery that is already calibrated for the unweildy version of our language and practically dozens of people who have bothered to master the spelling of words like 'Dryaonnajaq' (a fresh water fish) but Webster had no such restrictions. In a new country lacking in dictionaries, spelling standards, teaching standards and the like he had the opportunity to really reform spelling and unshackle it from confusion. Webster failed to do this in a spectacular way if only because he himself was the one who thought that English spelling rules were too complex. He abjectly failed to make American English any less difficult than its over-seas progenitor. Despite wanting the language to be determined by and for the people the way the government in America was by and for the people he went ahead and decided the standards for spelling and pronunciation on his own and by teaching several generations of children these new rules via his 'blue-backed spellers' he effectively mired the language in silent letters, 'soft' and 'hard' consonant sounds as well as 'long' and 'short' vowels and seemingly more exceptions to the rules than unexceptional words.

The only logical way to lay out a language and standardize it is to have one letter for each possible phoneme (each distinct sound in a language) and to have written words consist soleley of the letters necessary to make the phonemes in each spoken word. Obviously we would have to add some letters to the alphabet to do this and take an average of the current pronounciation to decide how to spell certain words. After a generation or two, however, there would be no arguing about the pronounciation of certain words because children would learn that the proper way to enunciate words is by the phoneme-based letters that make them up because there would simply be no letters that made more than one sound and no two letters that made the same sound. We would also have to determine the meaning of all homophones based on context clues but we already do this every day in spoken language so I doubt it would cause any more problems in our written language than it does verbally. We would also have to learn more letters and change our keyboards to accommodate them. Those are the downsides. The upsides are equally-obvious. It would be easy if not intuitive to know how to spell even the longest and most technically complex words and upon reading a word for the first time it would be as intuitive and easy to know how it is meant to be spoken aloud. There woud be little need for spellchecker. There would also be little competition in spelling bees and no call for spelling tests. I feel like the trade-off would be pretty reasonable, actually.

Webster did not lay out a logical language. He laid out an arbitrary one that has hindered many children and discouraged them from reaching their full potential because of its difficulty. He sought a reform that did little in the way of reforming besides anchoring our language firmly in unnecessarily complex spelling rules. He did do some worthwhile things like help to make schools secular. But the thing for which he is best-known is the very thing he seriously screwed up.

Bad Punchline: Three Vegetarians Cook a Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:03:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the United States and anyone else who follows crazy American traditions and happy twenty-fourth of November to everyone else. Between the fact that today is a national holiday where I live (my job is closed and everything) and that I am still banging my head against the fifty thousand word total needed to successfully complete NaNoWriMo and the exceedingly early hour at which this was posted you might be able to tell I wrote this post up in advance. (Over a month in advance, actually.) But also six weeks ahead of schedule I came up with a (hopefully) funny joke for you to enjoy.

Today, for the third year running, my parents are coming up for Thanksgiving. Despite the fact that my brother, sister-in-law, and myself are vegetarians we believe that family traditions are important. Thanksgiving just wouldn't be Thanksgiving without a giant meal cooking in the kitchen. Not only that but all three of us feel the need to include the standard dishes our families had when we were kids. Even though both our families are from the same state we have very different idea of what Thanksgiving dinners ought to consist of. The first year we not only poisoned my nephew (we hadn't yet learned he was allergic to peanutbutter) but also ended up with enough pie to eat for a month. Last year we had our friend Sean over and I remember very doggedly telling him a story I can't now recall as I tried to ignore my mother throwing up in the living room. This year for non-family members I had a special invitation message: "Bringing food or alcohol is mandatory because we're poor. You may also need to bring a chair. We ask that you kindly leave your age at the door but entertainment should be well-covered because what could be funnier than three vegetarians trying to cook a turkey?"

Reasons that Ashley is Awesome

noreply@blogger.com (Jace J. Quinn) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:04:00 +0000

Here are some reasons that Ashley is awesome:

Saving me wheat pennies to give to Cheryl.
Having a adorable little daughter.
Having her life on track.
Keeping a A average in college.
Working, being a mom, and going to college.
Her fantastic ability to save money with coupons.
Her connection with her family.
Her documentation of her daughter's life.
Willingness to listen to my bad jokes.
Devotion to my blog.
Enjoyment of ugly jewelry.
Exaggerating everything.
Cutting her hair really short and wearing little-girl barrettes.
How she doesn't just go to the store she goes on an adventure to the store.
How fun she is to be around.
How refreshing she is compared to some of my other coworkers.
Her crazy ideas about things.
Her random obsessions.
Willingness to lend an ear to problems.
The little kids' book she wrote for her daughter.
Adding 'reasons that Ashley is Awesome' to the end of a list of ideas I wanted to write blogs about.