Jerking Away Again in Margaritaville

What I'm about to tell you is pure fact.

A few years back, I started college at your typical 4 year university. The weekend before classes began my former girlfriend, dad, and I drove down to move me in. I was very nervous as the school was 6 hours from my home, I knew no one at the school, nor had any idea who my roommate was. I get to the dorms, move my stuff in and make the obligatory stop at Wal-mart for last minute essentials while everything is still on dad's dime. I get back and notice there is a gentleman quite reminiscent of Quasimodo, back hump and all, that is "moving" three pairs of slacks, some tube socks, and a couple t-shirts into our room. I asked him, "hey, how are you, is that all you brought? I'm Tom." He timidly said his name was Bruce Keith (not his real name) and quickly left the room. The next time I saw him would change my life....


After staying the last 2 nights before classes began in a hotel with my girlfriend, I woke up early to say my goodbyes.  I then made my way towards the eventual mistake that was 9am class. When I got there I realized that it was a lab and since labs do not meet before lectures there would be no class that day. (Duh) So, not having class for another two hours, I reluctantly decided to head back to the dorms for a little more sleep...

After reaching my dorm, I put the key in the lock and opened my door. What I saw when I entered can only be described as a desperate man's attempt to hide the fact that he was beating his dick furiously. He immediately placed a towel over his crotch, and made random noises that were a cross between grunts and sounds an injured emu might make . Not wanting to embarrass him I walked over to my cork-board/whiteboard and removed a flyer from it. I then pretended to read it while I quickly left the room without saying anything further.

In the hall I told myself that he was doing what many young men do and that it was no big deal. If Quasimodo wanted to masturbate in the mornings, we could just work out a schedule. However, thinking back a few seconds to when I quickly grabbed the flyer, I realized that one of the 7 pictures I put up on my corkboard was missing. It happened to be a picture of me and my girlfriend at prom. I felt very violated, confused and disgusted beyond words. I thought, was he beating it to me? To her? I didn't want to find out so I immediately went to our head resident advisor's office and requested we have a meeting to transfer me out of that dorm immediately.

Eventually he was transferred to another dorm and I got to have a single to myself. I never found out what happened to Bruce or where his masturbatory adventures took him. Perhaps he left the school out of embarrassment. Perhaps he hung himself.

Eventually I left Generic 4 Year University for various reasons, joined the workforce for a while, then finished my degree a couple years  later at a school 400 miles away.  However, during my second to last semester at the different school, I soon found out where Mr. Tugs ended up; in a biomedicine in law class right next to me.

The day began as any normal day.  I get to class, our teacher starts handing back papers from last week. I hear my name, I get my paper, and I start checking the teachers' comments.  All is going well until I hear, "Bruce Keith?" I almost shit myself because I thought no way in hell its the same guy. Slowly I averted my gaze from the paper in front of me and, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the unmistakable, pulsating hump mere inches from my face. Unbelievable. 4 years later, 400 miles away and the guy I caught jerking off in my dorm, that defined my very first college moment, was sitting next to me.

The next time class met I made sure I moved a safe distance away.  We never acknowledged each other, and I don't know if he remembered me, but I think its safe to say he probably did.  After all, would you forget about violating your roommates life your first day of college?  I think not. 

Until we meet again, Quasimodo, until we meet again...

The Day Has Finally Come....

It seems I will soon part ways with my old Dell Demension 2350 desktop from 2002 in order to make way for a newer work computer that will only serve as a faster gateway to hell.  You see, today is that magical day in every employees life where they find out they're finally going to get their completely obsolete computer upgraded. I truly can't describe the joy I feel. 

But you're probably thinking, "hey Bitter Tom, your work computer is probably not that bad and you're just using extremely hilarious and clever hyperbole in order to try and be funny, right?"  No my child, my work computer is truly a piece of shit to behold.


What you see below is my computers' resources maxed out 100% permanently.  No I am not running Photoshop nor am I debugging Jurassic Park.  Actually, besides the typical background programs, I am only running this lowly old version of lotus notes, the obsolete AS400 program you see in blue, and Firefox with 1 tab open.    

Click on the pic to maximize and view the shittyness in all its DOS style glory.

Yes, it seems as though Pentium 4 computers from 2002 with 256mb of ram do not hold up well in today's crazy, non-DOS world.  Please view the pic below so that you may laugh at me and my less powerful than a $35 Indian tablet PC computer.

What you should be noting here is more shittyness

I know I am not the only one out there with a dilemma like this. Please send me pictures of your work PC so that we may share in the joys of blue screen of death awesomeness.

WTF - Week 1

I see a lot of odd, stupid shit in my daily life.  Between the idiots I work with and this crazy apparatus made of pipes and cables called the internet, I was thinking that a weekly wtf-type column could be a good way to organize all that nonsense into one spot.

I will try to keep these lists to what has happened a week in the rear but sometimes I find crap that must be posted despite its age or lack of relevance to anything relevant. 
 
As always, any feedback, emails, or suggestions are welcome.

Lets Take A Ride

I'm sorry but when I picture my president, I envision Washington on a mighty steed crossing the Delaware; not Mortis the Safety Tortoise on a hybrid bicycle.

Crazy Ass Throws Cat in Garbage

This sociopath reportedly lives in England where people with the most civilized accents in the world reside.  If the British have taken to suffocating cats, I guarantee you that she is not the first, nor last person to throw a cat in a garbage can. 

Microsoft: How They Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Open Source Software

Apparently Microsoft is now bff with open source software.  I don't really feel like discussing this all that much but I found this extremely ironic considering they used to consider open source as "cancerous" to their business model.  Read more here if you're interested.  Sorry, I guess I really just found my title's pun to be too good not to post.

This Economy Might Have Just Hit its New Low

Last week Above the Law posted a UCLA Law job posting which included the following:

   
Dear Students,

I have received a request from a law alum who is looking for someone to drive him (for the next couple of months) (in his car – a Lexus RX, which is the small SUV) to appointments in the west LA or Santa Monica area. Probably from 1 to 2 hours each trip would be typical and advance scheduling is likely, so there would not be “on call” or anything like that. He lives about 2 miles north of campus and would need the person to come to his house to get his car (and him), via bike, a ride, or even a 2 mile uphill walk or jog (all of which he has done himself). Once scheduled, reliability is important, particularly for doctor appointments.

He is a long time entertainment lawyer and is currently Of Counsel with a firm in Santa Monica. While driving him to appts etc… he is happy to discuss his work and/or answer any questions you may have. This is a good opportunity if you are thinking of getting into entertainment law or even just to learn more about what it is like to be a practicing lawyer.

Suggested pay is $12 per hour.

If you are interested, please contact " "


Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions


All I can say is wow.  Keep in mind, the dean actually sent this out to every student on campus.  Imagine the prestige first year students felt when finding this in their inbox.  Unfortunately this is very common nowadays as students in places like California fight for government jobs that literally pay you nothing a year for 1-2 years just so you can "get experience."

Let's not imagine the worst though and say you did score that $12/hr dream job jogging 4 miles a day in order to chauffeur Mr. Awesome Law Guy around. Tuition at UCLA Law is $40,616 per year.  That is just tuition. No living expenses, no utility costs, no food, nothing. If you went to law school for 3 years, and your tuition remained the same, you would pay $121,848.  If you're really lucky, you attended UCLA Law from another state and paid $50,639 a year for the privilege of driving around a man in a SUV.  Please rape me now. WTF 

The Simpsons and Chicago Surveillance

I'm a huge fan of The Simpsons.  Especially what you would call "classic" episodes from seasons 3 - 6.  I say classic because many argue the show jumped the shark back in season 9 (1997) with the infamous "Principal and the Pauper" episode where Principal Skinner was revealed to be an impostor. While I don't agree the show necessarily jumped the shark then, I would agree that the show lost its luster somewhere around season 10.  Admittedly I have barely watched what you would call a "new" episode of the Simpsons since season 13.

With that said I recently had a flash of Simpsons nostalgia that made me want to see how bad the new episodes really were.  With most of the episode streams being blocked due to copyright infringement claims, I was forced to watch the 5 most "recent" episodes on Hulu.  What I found was that The Simpsons was infinitely better than I remember it to be in its declining years.  I also found a very relevant episode, "To Surveil With Love," (though I'm definitely late to this one considering it aired back on May 2nd) that dealt with the highly popular use of fear by the Government in order to justify increased security measures that don't necessarily curb crime. Some, like the ACLU, and others (here, and here,) argue that these cameras do more to infringe on our privacy than deter criminals.  Instead of putting money into a costly surveillance system that monitors more "good" citizens than bad, it is argued that the money should instead be spent on hiring more officers, jails/prisons, forensics, etc.

The security camera issue is especially abundant here in Chicago with Operation Virtual Shield.  With the increasing number of surveillance cameras being added to both private and public areas around the city, it is  clear that Mayor Daley and pals want to be able to see our every move.  In fact he is even quoted as saying he would like to see a camera on every street corner by 2016.  The city now has more than 10,000 cameras, one of the most extensive networks in the nation.   U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently pronounced it "one of the top two or three in the United States." So we should be safe in the city, right?

Well the short answer is, it depends. If you already feel safe in the city, and you're not worried about that pesky crime called murder, you should still feel relatively safe.  According to the Chicagopolice.org's official stats,  Chicago's notoriously high murder rates in 2010 are down 1.5% through July while total violent crime is down 10.9%.  However,  the murder per capita rate is still at a horrendous level. In 2009 only 13 more people were murdered in New York while nearly 3 times the amount of people live there. 

Also, between 2008 and 2009, according to the Chicagopolice.org crime statistics, violent crimes were down a total of 6.6% with murder being down 10.5%.  Is this the work of the cameras though?  Its really hard to say considering the amount of variables that lead to crime and crime prevention.  Also, Chicago's crime has been on a downward trend since 2002, so maybe policing strategies put into place well before the cameras were installed are finally paying off. However, if the cameras are working, why is Chicago's murder rate still so high? And why are 2010's murder rates similarly in line with 2009's after such a sharp decrease from 2008?

Its too bad that many questions like those will have to wait until all the facts and data are in.  With such a small sample to work with, its unfortunately too early to tell whether or not we're entering a realization of Orwell's police state or the future of crime prevention strategies. 

UPDATE

Ironically, after a little research, I found this episode is considered another jump the shark moment.  It was argued here back in May that the opening credits were an embarrassing mix of bad pop-culture reference and contrived  message board fodder.   

Bear with the commercials as this is one of the funnier, more relevant "new" Simpsons episodes I've seen in a long time.

 

Park51

I am embarrassed by my country right now.  I know this subject has been blogged about, re-blogged about, and debated 24/7 on anything close to resembling a journalistic entity, but I have  a few questions that have yet to be answered.

At what point did it become ok to associate an entire group of people with the acts of their respective minority?  More specifically, at what point did the majority of our nation decide to vilify the entire Muslim population as a whole?

The entire Park51 debate has me baffled. As a nation who embraces the idea of our precious freedoms so dearly, it is nothing short of ironic that we are now trouncing those ideals in droves.

Watching the video below I cannot help but be mortified and appalled.  Is this not reminiscent of the Red Scare, McCarthyism, or treatment of Japanese-Americans during and after World War II? How have those blatantly prejudiced and embarrassing events in our history not taught us anything?

Furthermore, it appears that the arguments being proposed thus far -- those of fear, prejudice, racism, or "Is it right?"--are nothing short of irrational and ridiculous.  The only rational argument I have heard thus far is that, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Tala, the founder and major supporter of the Community Center in question, has  ties to terrorism.  Ironically though, the source that brought up this bit of information appears to confused or biting the hand that feeds them.

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Welcome to my new blog. Here I will post rants, nostalgia, and other things I deem notable or humorous.