But, it makes no difference. It’s not like someone’s going to wave a magic wand, sprinkle, some fairy dust and speak in tongues to clear up all our problems. Nope. We’re still in a deep pile of fuck right now and, at very least, we have the cocksuckers that got us into this mess out of the picture. A lot of work ahead. Maybe someday I can travel to other countries without getting laughed at because our president practically has Down’s Syndrome. We can only wait and see.

Prop 8, which bans gay marriage in California also passed. I can’t believe a state that takes so much pride in being progressive still is littered with enough ignorant, bigoted, rednecks to let that shit pass. Pretty sad. Way to give the state a black eye, you fucking dumb asses.

OK. Elections are over. That’s the last I’m talking about it. For now, I have Fallout 3 which provides a far more interesting world to run around in.

Later.

There’s a vote next Tuesday in California to ban or allow gay folks to get married. It’s a hot topic around these parts with the homophobes stealing sings, loud protests, etc. I’m gonna tell you right now that this is all pretty fucking stupid. Of course gay people should be allowed to get married! There, I said it. I’m as straight as they come, but being a survivor of marriage I think that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

I mean, why the fuck not? Bible? Religion? Oh shut the fuck up you bunch of draconian, neanderthal dipshits. If 2 people are dumb enough to get married, then let them. It makes absolutely no sense to me that we can be so absolutely backassed that it’s even up for vote. If Cliff and Bruce want to combine their assets only to find out a year later that one of them can’t keep their pants on, then let them go through the same troubles us hetero folks have to go through. Get a lawyer, change the locks, change the phone number, move someplace else, etc. It’s no picnic and if they want to join the club of devastated dreams, then so be it.

Yet, people still insist this has to be a man and a woman. Why? Bible tells them that’s how it is. Why does the bible say this? Well, I’m not sure what those peyote eating cannibals were thinking back then, but I imagine it’s closely tied to the fact that marriage sucks and a last stab at saving the failed union is to have a kid and having a kid means another hand to feed the donation platter that gets passed around the church, repeat infinitely. I know I jumped around history there, but come on… we can test tube kids now. I you really need to get the collection plate a rockin, get some host wombs and frozen sperm. DIY parishioners!

Just let the gays get married. We all deserve a shot at faux bliss and painfully real disappointment.

As a side note, the Domestic Partner laws need to be flushed down the toilet OR be instated on hetero couples as well.

There we go. That was me swinging around my political influence.

The sweet smell of acrid smoke
Hangs heavy in the air
Blue skies give way to dark clouds
People scrambling, possessions left
Flames licking the sky, turbulent winds
Neighborhoods torched along with dreams
I laugh from my concrete jungle.

I love San Diego Fire Season. Of all the 4 seasons, here’s how I rank them, most important first:

• Fire Season
• Football Season
• Christmas Holidays
• Birthday/4th Of July Week O Sin

I usually will skip a show on a work night, but come on… can’t miss this one.

• Rice: You can never have enough rice! Once everything has collapsed and the shelves in the markets are bare, your stockpile of rice will soon be worth it’s weight in gold. And then some. You can feed yourself, your friends and your loved ones a hearty and filling meal. You will also be able to use it as a bartering tool to exchange for services, fuel, water or sexual favors.
• Water: With turmoil comes incompetence and I suspect that the clean drinking water (or what’s currently passing as such) from your faucets will no longer be consumable. Sure, you can boil it, but who knows if electricity or gas is even going to be working any more. You don’t want to be wasting precious propane in purifying water to wash down your rice dinner, do you? Also note water will carry the same bartering qualities as rice. If not more. Baby needs to drink, y’all!
• Gas/Propane: No brainer. You’ll need this once public utilities have tanked. Charcoal’s great for making your steak taste delicious, but it’ll be worthless once shit goes down. A propane tank on a grill goes a long way and you’re gonna need some way to cook your rice once things really get grim. In no way are you to use this as a bartering tool as those who guard the precious fuels will control the land (shit, they already do!). As an added bonus, propane tanks, even on empty, make great bombs.
• Bullets: You’re going to need plenty of bullets to defend all the aforementioned possessions. I’ll just assume you have a gun to fire said bullets. If not, you should just ignore this whole post and fling yourself off a bridge with all the investment bankers.
• Fire: You’ll need to light your grill, burn your trash and set dead bodies on fire. Whether it be some wax coated matches, a zippo or a good ole fashioned Bic, you’re going to need to burn things. And once all seems hopeless and your time has come, you might as well take your whole fortress down with you.

Those are just the basics. There’s obviously more detailed shit like generators, flashlights, batteries, etc. But this isn’t a survival guide, it’s Investment Tips.

And you’re going to need this stuff sooner than you think, so go invest wisely!

“The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.”

You know what? That’s goddamned solid logic right there. We are not put on this planet, shot from the womb and placed into life’s arms to sit back and be pushed around, lied to, littered with broken promises and be treated like a prole, dog, serf and slave by those who perpetrate all these heaps of bullshit upon you.

We’re supposed to think for ourselves, fend for ourselves and basically do everything we can to live a comfortable and happy life. It’s our right as a living being.

So, why am I supposed to ignore all of that in the name of a job? Why am I supposed to bend over and take on a mountain of shit in an effort to make the rich people who try and keep me down even richer so they can keep me down even further? Why am I expected to fear the higher ups in the company like I’m some sort of worthless peon waiting to be mercilessly crushed?

I have some fucking options. We all do. It’s just a matter of standing up for yourself and exercising them.

Hopefully, we’ve all learned this week that when the mighty fall, they fall hard and leave a nice raspberry splat on the pavement. Well, they might not be hitting the tarmac just yet, but just you wait… it’s going to get a lot worse here and then the real show begins. All these people who’ve made careers on stepping on the little guy and picking their pockets are now getting to suck the shit end of the stick.

And there I’ll be. Pointing and laughing. You failures give me strength. Your pain brings me happiness. The perfect order of the world has prepared me for this moment. The moment when the dirty, sinister and cruel while collar crimes that have validated your existence are coming for paybacks. With interest.

And those of us who tried to do it the right way will finally get our say, our chance and our opportunity to do it right this time.

Let me finish up here with a little more Ingersoll (hell, the man was Mark Twain’s mentor. too wise for his own good.):

“He who endeavors to control the mind by force is a tyrant. He who submits is a slave.”

Who are you?

On the other side of the fence is the stuff that isn’t abandoned but is still off limits to me. I’m not talking about the neighbor’s house or the back labyrinth in the local mall*, but rather the big dogs… the various top secret government installations scattered around the USA.

Now, I’m no fool. I know you just can’t waltz into these places and look around, or even be dumb enough to sneak into them. That’s a one way ticket to the gulag. But what most people don’t know is that a good number of these places will give you a tour and some even have gift shops. So, holy shit, I am SO there.

After a background check (they don’t need no stinking commies scoping shit out!) and a nominal fee, you’re escorted around and shown the shit they want you to see and give you a history of the place in question. My first stop, I’ve decided, is going to be the Nevada Test Site.

The NTS offers day long tours that hark back to the atomic era where we were testing some serious nuclear shit about 65 miles north of Las Vegas, in Ny County, outside of Groom Lake. Use Google Earth or Google Map in satellite mode, search out Nevada Test site and zoom in and pan around. You’ll see massive craters where the weapons were tested as well as the testing facilities and, get this, those little empty towns full of mannequins. Word has it that you get to see all of this shit on the tour. Awesome.

All of this has been spawned by my desire to explore the ruins of Chernobyl and Prypiat over there in the Ukraine. With an entire city left abandoned, it’s always been my Holy Grail exploration. Odds are I won’t get out there any time soon, so I’ve decided to branch out seek out interesting spots closer to home. Salton Sea was an absolute blast and continues to be every time I go down there, but it’s time to branch out further.

I picked up the book Top Secret Tourism and that’s pretty much set the wheels in motion. It’s a guide, state by state, of what’s going on in the secret world of warfare and which of these places you can actually go check out. While not exactly “urban exploration” at the definitive term level, it’s spurned the craving for checking out some of this really weird, heavy and mind blowing installations.

Today’s Free Tutorial will be on getting a sandwich at Subway.

1. Get in line. While waiting, select a sandwich from their menu along with your bread of choice.

2. When you get to the counter, tell the person who asks you what you want which sandwich you want on which style of bread and what size. They will make it and slide the sando to the next person in the assembly line.

3. Scoot over to that person. They will ask you which of the salad toppings you wish to have on your sandwich. Tell this person what you want and they will put it on the sando and offer to squirt oil and vinegar and mustard/mayo on it. Choose based on preference.

4. Scoot over the the next person who will upsell you chips, a drink and maybe a cookie. Again, this is on preference and generally costs extra. You will then be given your total.

5. Present any coupons you may have, if applicable.

6. When you receive your new total, pay up.

7. Either sit down or leave. Either way, enjoy your Subway Sandwich.

That’s it! Not too tough, right? Seems easy enough for a retard to pull off with minimal intervention.

But, alas, it’s not. Every time I go to that shitty place I am presented with humanity’s dumbest specimens. People who do not and cannot understand the simple and illustrated options this menial place offers. People who lack the mental capacity of selecting what they want in the 2 minutes while the person in front of them stumbles through their order. Combine that with the occasional buffoon behind the counter and your only choice is the recipe for disaster, frustration and insubordination.

In parting, I offer you some bonus Advanced Ordering Tips:

A. If ordering more than 2 subs, call the order in and it’ll be ready by time you get there to pick it up. If you need it at a specific time, this is also possible, but the chances of failure increase exponentially. Just call it in then go get it. Don’t be that dick who gets in line with a sheet from the office and orders 8 fucking custom subs. I will kill you and everyone else in line will thank me.

B. If you’re ordering 2 subs; one for you and one for someone else, coordinate before you go to the shop. Standing in line on your cell phone or talking to yourself with that dumb fucking thing sticking out of your ear is not an acceptable ordering process and I will kill you.

C. Cell phones have been around for a long time and are no longer considered cool. The ear dongle will never be cool. The people behind you listening to your conversation do not think you’re cool. Hang the fuck up or I will be forced to, you guessed it, kill you.

D. Don’t argue the terms of the coupon. They won’t budge, they don’t care and you’re holding up the line.

E. The important one. DO NOT do your Subway training from the hours of 11am-1pm and 4pm-6pm on any day. The people who understand the process are eager to get their sandwiches and have little patience for you and if I’m not in line, someone else will probably kill you.

This concludes the first Free Tutorial. Hope you idiots might have learned something.

New York was a blast. Saw all my old friends and family, went to a pirate themed wedding, Ommegang brewery and ate enough unhealthy food to clog the cleanest of arteries. Little Falls, sadly, seems to be a dying town. Population is down and every other house has a For Sale sign in front of it. The only businesses that seem to be doing well are funeral parlors and bars. Speaking of bars, we saw a good old fashioned hillbilly beatdown at one of the bars one night. Dude was asking for it and we were all none too happy to see the victim of said beating get tossed out of the place. Wild times in big ole Little Falls, NY. It was one of those vacations where I wished I could take a vacation when I was done with it. No rest for the wicked and all that.

Let’s see… back here in San Diego… not a whole lot to report. Ratebeer.com had their annual liver crushing gathering here in San Diego. Stopped by and played a part in that last Friday down at Hamilton’s Tavern. Needless to say I tried about 50 different beers there before the group of us headed up to Danger Abbey for a keg of Beatification and another keg of Superfreak. Oh, and if I recall (a little fuzzy), there was a Jagermeister dispenser as well. One of those things that dispenses cold shot and looks like it was designed by Jack Kevorkian. Yeah, Saturday was rough. Sunday was rough. Make it stop.

Coming up is the annual retreat to the Promised Land (aka: Amsterdam). There’s a bit of a twist in this year’s plans that those who were on the fence may wish to reconsider. We’ve pushed back the dates on this trip so it begins in London on 12/4/08, then to Amsterdam on 12/8/08, returning home on 12/13/08. What’s with the UK stopover, you ask? Check this this out: ATP Nightmare Before Christmas 2008 featuring The Melvins, Fantomas, Butthole Surfers, Mastadon, etc.

Actually, check out the lineup for yourself here.

It’s going to make the trip kinda pricey, but it’s not like I can think about saving money to see this same lineup again next year. Carpe diem! Did I also mention this show includes your hotel room for 3 nights? And it’s all inclusive to a giant indoor amusement park complete with pubs, supermarket, bowling alleys and, get this, motherfucking waterslides? Are you shitting me?

Galt and I are in, I believe. If anyone else wants in, for sure, no fucking flaking out, we can get a bigger room that get 3 meals catered.

If you want to live your life by the book… do your job, go home, watch TV, worry about war and the economy, repeat… then go ahead. But I’m going to see this show, then after the show head down to Amsterdam and do Amsterdam things for a few days.

That is all.

I reckon I’ll have a report on the NY trip soon enough.