And now, a brief rant

About this show "The Office" that seems to be, or have been, such a big hit. Being the fan of Britcoms that I am, I attempted to watch the original when it was first being run on BBC America. I found it enraging and infuriating. I hated it so much that I would start channel surfing just to avoid the commercials for it. Last night I allowed myself to witness a few minutes of one of the American version shows and it stills enrages me.

You know all those things they exaggerate for purposes of satire? Well, I worked at a company where all those things happened, pretty much literally and without exception. It was not funny. It was very frustrating and extremely stressful. I had one co-worker who was driven to anxiety attacks so bad that she eventually couldn't even leave her house. The company ended up paying her disability. Another co-worker actually committed suicide. Yes, she killed herself.

It is wrong to sanction the behavior portrayed on that show by allowing it to be made into an alleged "comedy." One of the many things wrong with this country today is that such outrageous behavior is tolerated and even encouraged by the corporate culture.

During the few minutes that I saw last night, the boss played a joke on an employee by telling her she was fired for stealing a post-it note, then told her it was just a joke. Her reaction was to yell at him that he was a jerk. This was an inappropriate response. An appropriate response would have been for her to slit his throat right where he sat and leave his blood-soaked corpse there as a warning for the next sh*thead who would inevitably be sent down from corporate to replace him.

If you think this kind of crap is funny, there's something wrong with you. And that is that.

They screwed up

Via Collecting Vinyl Records:

Former Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has hailed a new range of Royal Mail stamps featuring classic British album covers.

The set of ten stamps, which entered circulation on January 7, features iconic album covers including Blur's 'Parklife', The Clash's 'London Calling' and Led Zeppelin's 'IV'.

Speaking at the launch of the stamps at London's Rough Trade West, Page revealed the irony behind Led Zeppelin's iconic 'IV' album cover.

"Almost 40 years after the album came out, nobody knows the old man who featured on the cover, nor the artist who painted him," he said. "That sort of sums up what we wanted to achieve with the album cover, which has remained both anonymous and enigmatic at the same time."

The full list of stamps featured in the series is:

Blur - 'Parklife'
Coldplay - 'A Rush of Blood to the Head'
David Bowie - 'The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars'
Led Zeppelin - 'IV'
Mike Oldfield - 'Tubular Bells'
New Order - 'Power, Corruption And Lies'
Pink Floyd - 'The Division Bell'
Primal Scream - 'Screamadelica'
The Clash - 'London Calling'
The Rolling Stones - 'Let It Bleed'

Pardon the French, but WTF? Out of all the Pink Floyd album covers that would have made awesome postage stamps, they picked The Division Bell? That isn't even real Pink Floyd. What a crock.

40 years too late for some...

Ted Kennedy is finally dead.

I generally don't like to speak ill of the recently deceased, but he was an evil, power-hungry elitist who has damaged this country and the state he allegedly "represented" probably beyond repair. There are too many like him in government. They are not patriots. They do not love this country except so far that they enjoy exploiting the system to gain ever more power and dominance over the great unwashed masses.

Good riddance.

Thoughts on today's work

1. I am continually astounded (astounded, I say) at how many discarded condoms I see lying around, everywhere I go.

• I am astounded that so many people are apparently having sex anywhere and everywhere, with little regard for their location or surroundings.
• I am astounded that such people have the thoughtfulness and foresight to use condoms.
• I am astounded that although they seem to know how to use a condom, they apparently have not yet figured out how to use a trash can.
  

2. I continue to be disappointed at the way that kids behave. Not little kids. They always want to know who I am, what I'm doing, how my little handheld computer thingy works, what my name is, and so forth. It's the teenagers. What a bunch of surly dipwads they are. And don't try to fall back on that "don't talk to strangers" nonsense. That's just an excuse you've been programmed with to avoid critical thought and on-the-spot decision-making. Also: a Tootsie-Pop is not a suitable breakfast. This means you, Juwana. Old people are always the friendliest, even when we don't share a common language.

3. The reason I have to read even a dead meter is because it's there. That's what I do. If it's there, I read it. If it's not there, I don't read it. It really is just that simple. If you don't like it, have it removed. There is no other solution.

Mid-week rant

Today was a hard day, and I'm really too tired to think. So I spent a while vegetating and watching a bunch of Tru Calling episodes that I recorded from Sci-Fi the other day. If you've never seen it, let me just offer two words: Eliza Dushku. Enough said.

I recently saw Robocop 3. I think I've seen bits of it before, but this was the first time I attempted to sit through all of it. I didn't technically see all of it this time, because I fell asleep for about 30-40 minutes.

First I should say: this movie totally sucks. Bad acting, bad writing (My friends call me Murphy, but you can call me...Robocop!!!) And then there's the robot clone ninjas. WTF? Holy chao this movie is bad. But this time, I also noticed that it is a total socialist screed.

The "good guys" are people living in apartments, on land they don't own. The "bad guys" are the owners of the land. There is no subtlety, no gray areas, no endless nuance of reality to this story: the people should be allowed to live where they want, no matter if they can afford it or not, and the owners are always perfectly willing to murder them in cold blood to retain control of their property.

Think I'm kidding? Watch it sometime, when you have two hours to kill. At one point the heroine shrieks, among other things, the paramount insult: capitalists! Yes, the movie goes out of its way to portray capitalism as a movement of mass murderers.

It strikes me that the movie portrays almost everything exactly the opposite of the ways things are and the way I would expect things to happen, and in fact, the way things have happened in the past in other countries. Land owners would be more likely to be evicted so that their property could be "redistributed." The socialist rulers would be far, far more likely to employ common street gangs as mercenaries (in fact, I will be surprised if this isn't actually tried somewhere in this country in the next few years--it's going to be a disaster).

The first two Robocop movies were okay, in my opinion. They showed a human, tormented leftover of a man in Murphy. Number three portrayed him as nothing but a near-mindless automaton in slavish service to the party. Also the movie really sucked. I know I said that already, but it bears repeating.

Fortunately, I still have three hours more of Eliza Dushku to watch.

Clinging

Since early voting started, there have been cars parked all around the local city hall from people voting early. Today I was told by someone that he had to stand in line for 2 hours to vote early. I have never heard of such a thing happening around here.

I always wait until Election Day, but where I vote, I have never had to stand in line or wait for anything. A 2-hour wait for early voting here is totally unheard of.

This election is going to make 2000 look like a cakewalk. Here are some of my impressions, for whatever it's worth.

If Obama wins, it will be because of fraud. As far as I'm concerned, his failure to produce a birth certificate that wasn't an obvious forgery means he is not even eligible to be president. I don't think his win will mean immediate violence in reaction (although there may be "celebratory violence"). But there will be violence. Here and there, a slowly-building pressure cooker until something finally pops and a chain reaction starts. The "official" media will remain on his side except for a stalwart few, and everyone who opposes him because of his socialism will be painted as a racist by the media. Have no doubt about it. Eventually anyone who does not overtly show support for him will be considered a racist by association. I don't know if it will be by lapel pins, t-shirts, or something like gang colors or signs, but that is how it will go.

If McCain wins, and I still think he might because I'm sure the MSM is reporting only Obama-favorable news, there will be immediate and widespread violence in many major cities. There will be a lot of places where it simply will not be safe for a white person to go for a period of time. Bet on it.

And God help America.

NOTE: These are only my opinions. Feel free to tell me I'm full of it, because I hope I'm wrong.