20081121
"My boyfriend is lying to me."
CHICK: “I need advice. My boyfriend is lying to me.”
ME: “How so?”
CHICK: “Okay, so a couple days ago, we went out, and everything was cool, and he was saying how much he liked being with me, right? But then the next day he does not call me once while I’m at work. Then after work, I call him, and I try to be all nice and ask him what’s going on, if he’s mad at me, and he says no. So I say, “okay, if you’re not mad, let’s hang out,” but he says he’s already got plans to hang out with my friend from Vancouver and her boyfriend, who I hate. So I ask, “where are you going to hang out?” and he says “probably Vancouver.” So I just stay at home while he’s out with his friends. THEN, last night he comes over, and we’re hanging out, and in the couch cushions I find a receipt for the Marathon, which is like two blocks from my house. FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE. So I confront him on it, and he makes up this excuse, like, “oh, well I went out to see them in Vancouver and then we decided to go down to the Marathon.””
ME: “Sounds like a viable situation.”
CHICK: “So he lied to me.”
ME: “Sounds like he’s telling the truth to me.”
CHICK: “He lied by not telling me where he was.”
ME: (pause) “You know, this sounds like a textbook case of smothering.”
CHICK: “What do you mean?”
ME: “Well, he’s made an effort to say how much he enjoys spending time with you, and you still get mad at him if he doesn’t check in with you at least once every eight hours, and then you appear to have your friend doing spy work on him…”
CHICK: “What friend!? Spy work?”
ME: “Did you show him the Marathon receipt?”
CHICK: “What? No, of course not, I threw it away as soon as I saw it, I was so angry.”
ME: “Did you tell him you saw the receipt?”
CHICK: “Of course!”
ME: “So you’re mad that he is ‘lying to you’ after he had been totally straightforward with you, and amazingly patient with you giving him the third degree, and meanwhile you’re blatantly lying to him, claiming that you just happened to find a receipt in your couch cushions of a place he had been when he was wearing different clothes, when it seems perfectly obvious that you grilled your friend, with whom he was at the Marathon, about where he was and what he was doing.”
CHICK: “Well, he isn’t exactly trustworthy.”
ME: “How so?”
CHICK: “Like I told you, he doesn’t tell me where he is, and for all I know he could be out with his ex-girlfriend.”
ME: “What would possibly make you think that?”
CHICK: “I know he calls her. I checked the call history on his cell phone.”
ME: “How so?”
CHICK: “Okay, so a couple days ago, we went out, and everything was cool, and he was saying how much he liked being with me, right? But then the next day he does not call me once while I’m at work. Then after work, I call him, and I try to be all nice and ask him what’s going on, if he’s mad at me, and he says no. So I say, “okay, if you’re not mad, let’s hang out,” but he says he’s already got plans to hang out with my friend from Vancouver and her boyfriend, who I hate. So I ask, “where are you going to hang out?” and he says “probably Vancouver.” So I just stay at home while he’s out with his friends. THEN, last night he comes over, and we’re hanging out, and in the couch cushions I find a receipt for the Marathon, which is like two blocks from my house. FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE. So I confront him on it, and he makes up this excuse, like, “oh, well I went out to see them in Vancouver and then we decided to go down to the Marathon.””
ME: “Sounds like a viable situation.”
CHICK: “So he lied to me.”
ME: “Sounds like he’s telling the truth to me.”
CHICK: “He lied by not telling me where he was.”
ME: (pause) “You know, this sounds like a textbook case of smothering.”
CHICK: “What do you mean?”
ME: “Well, he’s made an effort to say how much he enjoys spending time with you, and you still get mad at him if he doesn’t check in with you at least once every eight hours, and then you appear to have your friend doing spy work on him…”
CHICK: “What friend!? Spy work?”
ME: “Did you show him the Marathon receipt?”
CHICK: “What? No, of course not, I threw it away as soon as I saw it, I was so angry.”
ME: “Did you tell him you saw the receipt?”
CHICK: “Of course!”
ME: “So you’re mad that he is ‘lying to you’ after he had been totally straightforward with you, and amazingly patient with you giving him the third degree, and meanwhile you’re blatantly lying to him, claiming that you just happened to find a receipt in your couch cushions of a place he had been when he was wearing different clothes, when it seems perfectly obvious that you grilled your friend, with whom he was at the Marathon, about where he was and what he was doing.”
CHICK: “Well, he isn’t exactly trustworthy.”
ME: “How so?”
CHICK: “Like I told you, he doesn’t tell me where he is, and for all I know he could be out with his ex-girlfriend.”
ME: “What would possibly make you think that?”
CHICK: “I know he calls her. I checked the call history on his cell phone.”
20081120
20081114
New Pet Peeve
I guess this never came up before because it was beyond my imagination that someone would do this, but I'm seeing it often enough at work for me to call it out: people who write an email, but instead of sending it, print it out and fax it.
They must believe that this is a more secure fashion of sending emails. I will concede that ten years ago, there were problems with emails being intercepted, and as recently as two weeks ago, Sarah Palin's emails were broadcast over the web, but that was because she used Yahoo Mail and had a really easy password to guess. Technology has done some good things recently, and although email is still not secure, it's just as safe as mail, or fax, or telephone. But that's not what bothers me.
What really bothers me is how mind-blowingly wasteful this is. The only waste of resources I can accept from people is when the way they're doing it is easier than the more efficient option. I never like going out of my way to be more sustainable. Ever. I do it because I have to. But to type something into a program specifically designed to communicate without paper, then to print it, especially when most email programs have a built-in fax option, is ludicrous. It's actually a huge inconvenience to type something, print it, then submit it electronically. Especially since most peoples' fax machines are their scanners. There's something inherently and fundementally wrong about that.
Also, it's not for nothing that emails are searchable, modifiable, resizeable, and can be manipulated, read and archived by computers. When you print it out and fax it, all of that functionality is lost. And when we get these "printed emails," they are always requests for something to be entered into our computers. Hey jackwad—you already did the computer part for us, why not just pass it along? Selfish fucking prick.
They must believe that this is a more secure fashion of sending emails. I will concede that ten years ago, there were problems with emails being intercepted, and as recently as two weeks ago, Sarah Palin's emails were broadcast over the web, but that was because she used Yahoo Mail and had a really easy password to guess. Technology has done some good things recently, and although email is still not secure, it's just as safe as mail, or fax, or telephone. But that's not what bothers me.
What really bothers me is how mind-blowingly wasteful this is. The only waste of resources I can accept from people is when the way they're doing it is easier than the more efficient option. I never like going out of my way to be more sustainable. Ever. I do it because I have to. But to type something into a program specifically designed to communicate without paper, then to print it, especially when most email programs have a built-in fax option, is ludicrous. It's actually a huge inconvenience to type something, print it, then submit it electronically. Especially since most peoples' fax machines are their scanners. There's something inherently and fundementally wrong about that.
Also, it's not for nothing that emails are searchable, modifiable, resizeable, and can be manipulated, read and archived by computers. When you print it out and fax it, all of that functionality is lost. And when we get these "printed emails," they are always requests for something to be entered into our computers. Hey jackwad—you already did the computer part for us, why not just pass it along? Selfish fucking prick.
20081111
Linguistics and mid-management
ME: “Boy, my boss is dumb.”
ME: “How dumb is she?”
ME: “She heard me sneeze, and sent me an IM that said ‘kazoontite.’”
ME: “Hmmm, that’s not very funny.”
ME: “Oh, it wasn’t a joke. My boss actually thinks it’s spelled ‘kazoontite.’ I replied that I didn’t know what she was saying, and she confusedly explained to me that that is what you say after someone sneezes.”
ME: “Oh. Oh dear.”
ME: “Yeah. I had to cover my tracks for implying she was an idiot by saying ‘Oh, I didn’t realize it was a reply to my sneeze.’”
ME: “Well, thank God you’re witty enough to still convince your boss that you’re dumber than her.”
ME: (sound of blowing brains out)
ME: “How dumb is she?”
ME: “She heard me sneeze, and sent me an IM that said ‘kazoontite.’”
ME: “Hmmm, that’s not very funny.”
ME: “Oh, it wasn’t a joke. My boss actually thinks it’s spelled ‘kazoontite.’ I replied that I didn’t know what she was saying, and she confusedly explained to me that that is what you say after someone sneezes.”
ME: “Oh. Oh dear.”
ME: “Yeah. I had to cover my tracks for implying she was an idiot by saying ‘Oh, I didn’t realize it was a reply to my sneeze.’”
ME: “Well, thank God you’re witty enough to still convince your boss that you’re dumber than her.”
ME: (sound of blowing brains out)
20081105
Hope Isn't Supposed to be Real
I will just tell you, that sitting in a bar full of Portlanders, from ages 21 to 45, I have never seen anything like the moment when the CNN graphic came on the screen saying “Barack Obama, President-Elect.” People who have been voting since Nixon have said that this was the first time in their adult lives that it had even occurred to them that the government could be a force for good, and not an obstacle to overcome. Even when Obama had 230 votes with the polls still open in the 81-electorate West Coast, there was not a single person who was presuming victory for Obama. They kept saying that “theoretically,” he could win the election with just California reporting. It just seemed so obvious that over the span of the last eight years, and especially with 2004 in mind, everyone was just used to the bad news coming at the 11th hour.
Every time I look online at the news today, it’s still there: Barack Obama is going to be our President. I’m only 29 years old—I don’t have any experience having faith in our country. Having an Obama-Biden ticket take four hundred electoral votes isn’t something that really happens, it something we fantasize about over Thanksgiving break, of a world worth living in that might have, in another universe, actually existed.
I’ve got a new universe to get used to.
Every time I look online at the news today, it’s still there: Barack Obama is going to be our President. I’m only 29 years old—I don’t have any experience having faith in our country. Having an Obama-Biden ticket take four hundred electoral votes isn’t something that really happens, it something we fantasize about over Thanksgiving break, of a world worth living in that might have, in another universe, actually existed.
I’ve got a new universe to get used to.
20081103
My final plea
As the election season finally draws to a close, let’s take one last look back at what we have seen.
This election has, in many ways, drawn Americans further apart from each other. Supporters of the conservative movement have been very vocal in their fear and mistrust of their liberal counterparts. Beliefs of liberal supporters, while more subdued in the statements of their opinions, are in many cases no less extreme.
Liberal-leaning Bill Ayers’ questionable history with this country has been well covered. Palin has bluntly referred to him as a terrorist. She has also referred to the pockets of this nation who agreed with her as “the real America,” implying that any part of the country who disagrees with her is fake America. Nancy Pfotenhauer mirrored this sentiment when she referred to “real Virginia.” With her husband the presumptive candidate of the favored party for President, Michelle Obama was finally proud of her country, implying that she had not been for the 26 adult years prior. In response, Michele Bachmann opined that the Obamas could be considered “anti-American.” Some conservatives outright consider Obama himself a terrorist. Frank Schaeffer, of the liberal Huffington Post, has stated in no unclear terms that “McCain is a threat to America.” And finally, Palin invoked the almighty Bill of Rights just this Friday by saying that the First Amendment itself could be in danger if she continues to be criticized for the statements she has made.
But the First Amendment, in fact, is what has made these past months possible. What sets America apart from any country which came before it, and many which have come since, is the foundational basis that who is right or wrong is irrelevant. When a civilization deems one group the authoritative source, any corrosion of that group defiles the entire nation it represents. It doesn’t matter, then, whether McCain really is a threat to America, or where Obama supporters’ patriotism lies. What is important is that all sides express their views and allow the people to decide.
Unfortunately, there are even those who are trying to suppress that allowance. However, both sides have aggressively worked to prevent voter fraud and suppression from rearing their ugly head in any significant way. Efforts like those in Virginia telling Democrats to vote on the 5th, when their ballots will be worthless, have been quickly extinguished. Conservative governor Charlie Crist quickly worked to extend voting hours in Florida, even though all signs indicate that the move benefitted Barack Obama.
So we can all brush aside these ideas of fake or anti-Americans. This election has had a profound effect on many people. At least one quarter of Americans will feel betrayed, ignored, and possibly even rejected by their country this Tuesday. Yet all of this ugliness is symptomatic of what makes this country great: that we are allowed to say what we think, and exercise our Constitutional right to vote based on those thoughts.
The only truly un-American thing to do at this point is to waive that right.
This election has, in many ways, drawn Americans further apart from each other. Supporters of the conservative movement have been very vocal in their fear and mistrust of their liberal counterparts. Beliefs of liberal supporters, while more subdued in the statements of their opinions, are in many cases no less extreme.
Liberal-leaning Bill Ayers’ questionable history with this country has been well covered. Palin has bluntly referred to him as a terrorist. She has also referred to the pockets of this nation who agreed with her as “the real America,” implying that any part of the country who disagrees with her is fake America. Nancy Pfotenhauer mirrored this sentiment when she referred to “real Virginia.” With her husband the presumptive candidate of the favored party for President, Michelle Obama was finally proud of her country, implying that she had not been for the 26 adult years prior. In response, Michele Bachmann opined that the Obamas could be considered “anti-American.” Some conservatives outright consider Obama himself a terrorist. Frank Schaeffer, of the liberal Huffington Post, has stated in no unclear terms that “McCain is a threat to America.” And finally, Palin invoked the almighty Bill of Rights just this Friday by saying that the First Amendment itself could be in danger if she continues to be criticized for the statements she has made.
But the First Amendment, in fact, is what has made these past months possible. What sets America apart from any country which came before it, and many which have come since, is the foundational basis that who is right or wrong is irrelevant. When a civilization deems one group the authoritative source, any corrosion of that group defiles the entire nation it represents. It doesn’t matter, then, whether McCain really is a threat to America, or where Obama supporters’ patriotism lies. What is important is that all sides express their views and allow the people to decide.
Unfortunately, there are even those who are trying to suppress that allowance. However, both sides have aggressively worked to prevent voter fraud and suppression from rearing their ugly head in any significant way. Efforts like those in Virginia telling Democrats to vote on the 5th, when their ballots will be worthless, have been quickly extinguished. Conservative governor Charlie Crist quickly worked to extend voting hours in Florida, even though all signs indicate that the move benefitted Barack Obama.
So we can all brush aside these ideas of fake or anti-Americans. This election has had a profound effect on many people. At least one quarter of Americans will feel betrayed, ignored, and possibly even rejected by their country this Tuesday. Yet all of this ugliness is symptomatic of what makes this country great: that we are allowed to say what we think, and exercise our Constitutional right to vote based on those thoughts.
The only truly un-American thing to do at this point is to waive that right.
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