You know what it is?

Little old ladies who haven't been felt up in years seem to be the only ones benefiting from the new enhanced screening methods.Watching the TV coverage last night of the TSA protests were more revealing then the newscasters thought. Of course people did not "opt out" of one intrusive search over another, both are equally humiliating and people don't have time when travelling. What the reporters inadvertently did convey was the that fact that people just opted out of flying altogether. Yes, the airports were free and clear and running smoothly, but that's because anyone who could drive, board a bus or ride a train was doing just that, Amtrak reported having every single car available in service yesterday.

People have just had enough, the frisking was the final straw it seems. People will put up with just so much before they revolt. In the name of safety they will put up with even more, but these airport molestings are just not making people feel any safer, and as far as I know, the TSA has not stopped one single terroris tever. I'll tell you from personal experience that being treated like a criminal is not pleasant. I worked for Century 21 once, I lasted five days. My primary reason for leaving was the twice daily pat downs by store security that every employee was subjected to. How can we support the notion that every man is presumed innocent before a court of law but somehow is presumed a terrorist at an airport? Once again, the common man is afforded less rights then the common criminal.

The whole Government logic just seems a step behind the realities of the situation. A guy tries to blow up a plane with his shoes, we are all taking our shoes off. Another uses his underwear to smuggle a bomb, we are now being ogled and felt down to our skivies. I can't wait to see to reaction and the type of agents they hire after a future terrorist smuggles something in his ass! That is the next logical hiding spot, am I right?

I understand that the Government really has no great interest in sexually assaulting flying passengers on a daily basis, but this is a disaster. The airline industry cannot cope with yet another setback of this magnitude. Yes, people who have to fly will fly. You just can't get to Europe or California in a reasonable time period unless you take a plane, but I project the death of short and medium distance flights. Expect more mergers, bancrupcies, more fees and crappier service. The protesters didn't have to make a point, economics will. I will however like to congratulate the man in New York who showed up in underwear and the gal in LA who came in bikini, nothing like mockery to bring home a point.

Nations Editors Abdicate Duty To Snooki

THE LEEK
(an Onion parody)
Dateline: New York

In case you were confused as to how our esteemed leader could know the names of notable cultural institutions like Jay-Z but feign ignorance when asked about Snooki on The View, we now have more insight. This weeks premiere of The Jersey Shore began with Snooki packing up for a reunion with her Guido pals in Miami, she tells the camera "I am bringing tons of bronzer with me since I am no longer going to tanning salons. I ain't going since Obama started to tax them. Of course he doesn't have to tan, just look at him".

Bravo Snookster, the only person (outside of a few well written blogs) to mention the tanning tax and its implied racist overtones. When asked for comment, editors of our countries newspapers started staring at their shoes and mumbled something before running away to hide their heads in the soil of the nearest office plant.

X-Grown Ups

I saw a flyer for a water balloon fight this weekend, not for kids but for grown men and women. Whimsical, sure , but it is also a bad sign. People are just not growing up. There is even a movie out right now called Grown Ups that seems to confirm what I am saying.

Look at the X Games, I guess it's not much different from any professional sport that pays grown men to play games that are really meant for children, but there is something just so stupid looking of a 20 year old on a tiny BMX bike or a 30 something skateboarding around like he is a ten year old popping over to the local park to trade baseball cards and drink soda pop. At least to me, they look absurd, sort of like Boy Scouts who stay on long past the point where they look stupid in little brown shorts so they can make Eagle Scout. Sometimes you just have to know when to hang up childhood pastimes. Maybe that's why people have kids of their own, then they don't look ridiculous on the ball field when they are teaching their own sons and daughters how to hit a ball.

In The Field

After 2 weeks of bureaucratic BS I finally got to go out and do what I am being paid for, conducting the Census. Man, I almost forgot how much I love doing this. I went around house to house ringing bells and just talking to people. I only got one family counted tonight but it was everything I remembered it to be. People are interesting and when they cooperate it's just a pleasure to do this job.

Cenus Training

DAY 1
Sorry guys, have been out of range, started working the Census again. Took some time off from my Shitty job so I can do what I always loved.
Noted so far
1. Fingerprinting of everyone, mandatory
2. Sam old group of 20 somethings and bored housewives. However, in my training session there are two guys who look like bank presidents, times are tough.
3. training went from 2 days to 4. How they can spend that much time on asking one question is beyond me
"How many people live here?"
4. Two asian chicks who never ran a class in their lives are supposedly teaching us, the mothra twins just read from a phone book sized manual, one of the most boring endeavors I have ever sat through. Sad thing is, when they have a questions, the participants ask me. I am like the grizzled old veteran whose been in the enumeration trenches before.
"Baby, let me tell you about the time I had to count an entire group home for the mentally challenged persons, but first why don't you show some love..Did I mention it was the loooong form?"

Day 2
Now I am starting to get why most of these people are unemployed. Yesterday I was still clinging to notions about the economy and such. That's not he case, most of these folks are morons. From the questions the Mothra twins fielded I can see no real job would want them, I honestly don't know if McDonald would hire them. They are not retarded but the "special" program is all they would qualify for.
"Excuse me, but can we go to the bathroom when we are working"
This from a normal, healthy and sane looking woman. What kind of question is that? As the retired city worker sitting next to me commented
"Next they will ask if we should go into a burning building and who should we talk to first"?
Listen, I know the training is BS I just have to sit through this two more days and I am home free, the actual work is rather fun and pretty easy from what I recall.

Day3
Then there is the drunk who sits in front of me. Form day one she looked a little odd, she wore dark, dark sunglasses, mind you, we are in the basement of a church, it's cold and dark down here. Other then her obvious pallor (reduced amount of oxyhemoglobin in skin or mucous membrane, a pale color which can be caused by illness, emotional shock or stress, stimulant use, lack of exposure to sunlight, anemia or genetics) of a chronic drinker, she also walks around with a water bottle that she seems to think is hiding her booze. But it's wrapped in this nasty black plastic bag and from the murmurs of those around me, I don't think she is fooling even this bunch. Hey, more power to you, I wish I had the will to drink down there, it might just make the time more passable.

So today's training concluded with a mandatory EEO lesson. The usual "we don't discriminate" BS we have all heard a thousand times, you could almost feel all of the (white) people rolling their eyes. When the speaker gave out the number to a local equal opportunity office everyone began to put their stuff away, everyone but the sole two hispanic girls, they jotted the number down like they meant it, even asking for it to be repeated. The guy in the next chair and I saw that and started chuckling. I got to say the man made me laugh, just before it's time to leave he got up and announced he had "take a squirt, I better do it now, on their time" I started laughing, he added "What do you want from me, I am retired city worker"? I told him I knew exactly what he was talking about and that's why I was laughing so hard, truth be told, one of the greatest thrills I have left in life is taking a nice long crap and knowing I am on the clock.

Day 4
The joke of it all is that I have been telling you what a bunch of morons I have in my class. So today they give a "final exam" to see what we absorbed. I was cocky, I didn't try, I could barely be bothered to open my book for this open book exam. So I should not have been as surprised, I got a 69, passing was 70. Luckily the test didn't count.

At lunchtime I got to experience some more ethnic diversity, I walked down 13th Avenue Boro Park, amazing, this Jewish neighborhood still has the ethnic flavor you only see remnants of in the Lower East side. Hasids of every shape and color are walking around, talking on cell phones, pushing past you on lines or just pushing baby carriages. For dinner I went five blocks away to little Chinatown on 8th Avenue and was transported into a completely different ethnic enclave. Say what you will, New York does have an amazing variety of peoples all scurrying around trying to eke out a living.

Speaking of Hasids, I was parking at the huge retail produce market on 65 street, in front of me a Mexican guy was loading groceries for the a black hat and jacketed hasidic fellow. As he closed his min van door I could clearly see the guy giving the Mexican a tip, it was change, but all in copper. As he drove off the Mexican saw that I had seen the exchange and started laughing, I got out of my car and asked, "What? Did he give you all pennies?" The man laughed and said "Si, all pennies". Ah, you got to love New York

Conclusion
The city job I have been doing for the last two years has really made a worse person. I have become dumber as evidenced by my poor test performance, I am lazier then ever and now I seem to have adopted only the bad work related traits. For instance, in the morning I was the guy who brought in his breakfast, after, why should I eat on my time? Let the motherfuckers pay for that as well. In other words, I just have a real bad attitude now. Civil service baby!

What If The Shoe Were On The Other Foot?

This Louisiana oil spill is upsetting me, aside from the damage to the wildlife, I am wondering why no one is bringing up the fact that our government opened up the rest of America's coastline to drilling only a few weeks ago. I imagine had the president been a former oil man or outspoken governor from Alaska, the connection would have been made by now?

Tax On Tanning Beds

This news item caught my eye today, it's an outrage if you ask me.

But if the health-care reform package currently in Congress passes, you'll be paying a 10 percent tax at your neighborhood tanning salon.
The tax would apply to all indoor tanning services. It's designed to help pay for reforms to expand health-care coverage.
The "tanning tax" replaces a proposed 5 percent tax on cosmetic surgery procedures that had been in the bill.

RACISM!
If you tax tanning services then shouldn't you also tax du rags and malt liqour?

Gloria Steinem Where Art Thou?

Where is Steinem? Where is NOW? Shouldn't the feminst movement have something to say about a potential predator who is threatnening phyisical violence towards women? After all, the text messages released this week sound like this person needs to be put on a sex registry and carefully monitored.

Tiger:Sent: 04"02 PM 08/29/2009:
I want to treat you rough. Throw you around, spank and slap you
Tiger:Sent: 04:07 PM 08/29/2009:
You are my f------ w----
Tiger:Sent: 04:08 PM 08/29/2009:
Hold you down while i choke you ...
Tiger:Sent: 04:10 PM 08/29/2009:
Then im going to tell you to shut the F--- up while i slap your face and pull your hair for making noise
Tiger:Sent: 04:21 PM 08/29/2009:
Where do you want to be bitten

Civil Service Explained

The title of this entry comes from one of the crappy pamphlets you are given or directed to online when you are fingerprinted, photographed and for all intents, branded upon entry into "they system".

The city is not what I thought it was going to be. My friend told me when I started
"You know how to tie your own shoes, you should be running the place in a few months"
I of course found out the hard way its nothing like that, not only is upward mobility impossible without taking sporadically given tests or being related to people who do the hiring, but incompetence is rewarded. The management has no way of firing you so they become sadistic and petty beaurocrats who take great pleasure in annoying their underlings. It's actually quite a horrible place to be in. Its nice to know that you can't be fired, unfortunately, that's all I hope for these days. I'm like a galley slave hoping another ship rams us.

This is a great job for those who are unemployable, or don't care. It's also not bad if you have some sort of substance abuse problem as all you have to do is register and they can never fire you for being drunk and stoned. If you have no ambition in life, civil service with the Shitty Of N.Y. is for you.

I WOULD NEVER RECOMMEND THIS JOB TO ANYONE I KNOW.

I have actually found myself getting stupider as time goes on! My skills are decreasing and I have only mastered repetitive tasks you can teach a chain smoking monkey to achieve.

I say this because I have no simpler way of describing it, but my friends are not retards, junkies or low-lifes. Sadly, there are plenty of good, hard working, God fearing people whose circumstances brought them to this horrible place. This is for the filthy, low down urban trash you see at the DMV or writing you parking tickets. THEY BELONG HERE. This is not a job for a sane man with even a modicum of self worth.

Non Pussy Of The Year Award

Guys, I don't know if I would jump into a blood red ocean with sharks circling to rescue my own Mother so quickly. This guy did it for a complete stranger, I hereby make notice that from now on it is forbidden to ever call Lifeguard Dan Lund a pussy, even in jest this will not be tolerated and any man who does this must be beaten severely. I'm sorry, in my book this man has earned some real fucking respect. I can tell you without doubt, had I been in that lifeguard tower and heard a scream, ran over to my binoculars to see a man thrashing around several dorsal fins, my reaction would have been:
"Now that sucks, for you".

Converter

I tried to watch CBS this weekend on my new converter box. Nothing doing. It is only now becoming apparent to me that the switch from analog to digital TV that was mandated by government was not only a way of controlling what we all see, you do realize that is more possible now? Alas, the real reason, or at least the driving force must have come from the cable industry. All we need do is follow the money. Who has it? Cable bills are now completely out of control. In the city, $70 gets you basic cable and 100 gets you a HBO or Showtime. These prices are ridiculous, and why? Because they have no competition. Satellite is not there yet and their service is even worse from what I have been told. Your signal goes out when it rains, you know, the times you are stuck indoors and might actually want to watch some television. No, I'm afraid the truth is just too plain not to see. These bastards managed to buy off our supposed representatives and imposed a system that basically does not work thereby making people more likely to switch to cable. What a shame, yet another example of big business using big government to affect the citizenry in a negative manner.