THAT'S LIFE

I was hanging out at the pharmacy this morning, as I like to do on Friday mornings, and I noticed an advertisement on the counter. It asked I felt distracted. Trouble focusing? Restless? Disorganized? Yes, yes, yes and yes.

Then it suggested I may have something called Adult ADD.

Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. Can you believe that shit? And guess what…there’s a drug to help with it! Can you imagine the luck??

There’s another name for Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. It’s called LIFE.

Listen…there’s a lot of shit going on in the world and trying to keep track of it all is not easy. All the gadgets and devices and technology invented to make our lives easier really only make things more complicated by giving us more things to keep track of.

Remember how nice it used to be before cell phones? If someone needed to reach you, they called you at home and left a fucking message. Today, everyone you know has direct access to your person at all times. And the shit you have to pay for now? There are cable bills, Internet cable bills, cell phone bills, and countless other niche services out there nickling and diming us to death. There’s IPOD and Blackberry and BlueTooth – and warranties and rebates to keep on top of for all of that shit. Pagers and PDA’s and phones that play video. Plasma televisions, LCD monitors, DVD recorders. And technology changes so frequently you’re always upgrading something to keep up with the times. A new television. A new computer. A new MP3 player. A new digital camera. A new car. A new satellite radio. How many big-ticket electronics did you buy over the past couple years? Growing up I had a single Atari 2600 system, television was FREE, and I shared a telephone with three other people. We didn't even have an answering machine until the mid-80's, so if nobody was home, you had to call back. Those were the days. People actually had time to spend and money to save.

Shit ain’t like that today. Folks are always on the go. Gotta stay connected. And with so much information at our disposal, it’s no wonder we feel overwhelmed. It’s not Adult Attention Deficit Disorder...it’s Busy Fucking World Disorder. More shit to buy = more shit to keep track of = less time for family = less money in the bank = A.D.D.


I’d like to update the classic Hasbro board game “The Game of Life” to be relevant to the times. There’d be plenty of new squares out there:






Try crystal meth – Lose 10 turns and $10,000

Your identity was stolen! – Lose 5 turns and $5,000

Your spouse runs off with a foreign artist – You’re single again!

Health care costs increase again – Pay $2,500

Child molested by Catholic priest – Pay $2000 in counseling for 5 turns

Insurance company refuses to pay claim on technicality – Pay $4,500

New home in suburbs much farther from work – Pay $100 per turn in gas

Hit and run drunk driver puts you in hospital – Lose 4 turns and pay $15,000

Your oldest son is an addict – Put him back in your car and pay $250 for 3 turns

Alcohol becomes a permanent part of your life – Pay $150 per turn

You’ve got Chlamydia! Wash your hands before every turn

Car towed again – Pay $50

Paternity test reveals you ARE on the father! – Pay $20000 per turn for 18 turns

Corporate scandal wipes out your 401K – Lose your entire savings

You’ve got lung cancer! – Skip ahead to House of Reckoning

War in Middle East takes the lives of half your children

Arrested committing armed robbery to feed family – Lose 20 turns, spouse, and kids

Move to Utah – Add 4 spouses and 22 children

You’ve been sued! – Hand all of your money to the lawyer on your right

Plastic surgery goes bad – Lose spouse and $20,000

Spouse has child out of wedlock – Lose spouse or pay $2500 per turn to raise child

New season of Survivor hooks you – Lose one turn

Hurricane blows through – Lose home, one child, 8 turns, and $50,000

Get hooked on designer drug to treat Adult A.D.D. - Lose $100 per turn and your sanity

CHECKING I.D.

There was an article in the paper earlier this week in which an individual who claimed to be one of the principal and primary architects of the concept of Intelligent Design defended the base of the belief. Essentially, as I'm sure you must all well know by now, the claim is that life is too complex to be attributable to chance. These people obviously managed to attain their sheepskins without ever having had to master math or statistics. Seriously, how arrogant is it for us to think that we are too wonderful to be the products of fortuna, even across billions of years (and perhaps billions upon billions)? Are we even sure this is the first universe ever? Given how little we really know, is it not possible that, prior to the Big Bang, there were 10 other or 100 or 1000 others?

Further, to that....why is it not every bit as conceivable to say: "Hey, this universe has been around roughly 15 billion years...and has 250 billion galaxies, each with millions of planets...it was BOUND to happen, sooner or later!"


OPEN LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE DALLAS NEWS:


Subject: Sunday, January 29, 2006: Stephen C. Meyer: "Signs of
intelligence"

Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 22:34:27 -0600

How ironic that an article titled "Signs of Intelligence" would be so completely devoid of any.

Mr Meyer, a Cambridge PhD, no less, would have us believe that biological systems within our world are so complex that the only feasible explanation is Intelligent Design. Mr. Darwin first published his landmark and controversial theory in 1853, the same year in which:

The population of the 31 United States was 20 Million Free Persons and 2 Million Slaves.

Franklin Pierce took over the presidency from Millard Filmore.

Singer just applied for a patent for his new sewing machine.

The Crimean War was being fought.

"Around the World in 80 Days" was still 20 years off!

In the succeeding 150 years, we've established international air flight, envisioned and built the Internet, been to the moon, discovered and conquered disease (remember, in 1853, Louis Pasteur was still trying to convince people to wash their hands prior to sawing people open, and we used leeches in an earnest attempt to cure bullet wounds to our President 10 years later), and have opened our eyes to our universe which is presently estimated to house 250 Billion galaxies. In all that time, though, our only proposal to advance Mr. Darwin's theory is to say:

"It's just too complicated for Darwin's framework. Must have been done by a greater intelligence than our own."

How about this? There are 250 Billion galaxies, each with millions upon millions of stars. The universe is roughly 13 Billion years old. That's a lot of time and a lot of places for incredibly complex things to come about of their own accord. And that's only in our universe. Many scientists postulate that this universe is only one of multiple dimensions. Still others question if universes have been created and destroyed, ad infinitum, for all of time.

That's a lot of gray area to eat into the certitude of attributing all life to a divine intervention. Look how much our own world has changed in 150 years. Isn't it a bit small-minded to rule out the inumerable possible machinations of billions of locations across billions of years?

SOMETIMES YOU GET MORE THAN WHAT YOU PAY FOR

The Nike "swoosh" logo was created by a design student who received $35 for the effort.

Quite possibly the steal of the last millenium.

FATE OF THE UNION?

President Bush delivered his State of the Union address last night, but making headlines was an episode involving Senator Hillary Clinton in which she was heard uttering an endless stream of obscenities. According to reports, one of the electronic components in her central nervous circuit board shorted out, resulting in a motor malfunction. Witnesses say she shook and vibrated uncontrollably for 22 seconds, repeating the phrase: "That asshole can suck my dick" over and over until a handler was able to repair the shorted wiring. Hillary is seen in this AP photo stuttering on the word "dick." There has been no official word on whether or not she actually has one, a mystery insiders say is best left unsolved.

SPAM HUMOR FOR YOU

A little boy goes to his father and asks, "What is Politics?"

Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the head of the family, so call me The President. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the People. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now think about that and see if it makes sense."

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what Dad has said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parent's room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed.

The next morning, the little boy say's to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now." The father says, "Good, son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."

The little boy replies, "The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit."

CHIMPANZEE-MAIL

Thanks to Lainey for passing along this viral marketing gem. Have fun customizing monkeys like me and sending voice greetings to everyone you know! Try out the different voices - and when you type in your personal greeting, think phonetically to make sure the computer pronounces it right. Hours of mindless fun, my friends.

Without further ado, I give you Monk-e-mail.

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW

Just wanted to let everyone know that I just looked down and noticed I am wearing plain white socks with my black dress shoes and gray wool pants. So if you've ever felt entertained, informed, or mildly amused by something you've read here, you should know that it was the work of a man who can't even dress himself. That is all - please go back to work, you slacker.

MAPQUEST

"Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography."

- Paul Rodriguez

JOY IN MUDDVILLE

Today, the Exxon Mobil Corporation posted record profits. Again.

And not just record profits for Exxon, but record profits for any U.S. company. I should further qualify that. Today, Exxon posted record profits for ANY U.S. company EVER in the history of our great nation. I don't know about you, but it sure makes me proud to be an American. HAY'LL YEAH! Fill me up, baby. I'm living the dream of making men in expensive suits filthy fucking rich. And do you know what? They deserve every cent for providing me the luxury of transportation. Thanks to their product, I don't have to live next to the place I work. I can live miles and miles away in a nice neighborhood and still get to work every day, whether I choose to drive, cab, or take the bus. Thanks to refined oil, I can see my parents whenever I want, which I would do more but for the high price of gas. Thanks to gasoline, I can go wherever I want whenever I want - even pick you up on the way! Yeah - gasoline rules.

The last time they posted record profits (last quarter, I believe), I was a little hard on those bastards. I've had some time to think about it since then and I've since come to the conclusion that they have every right to charge whatever they want for gas. I just want them to be honest about it. Don't tell us gas is expensive because of the war in Iraq or the high price of crude or a shortage in the world's oil reserves. Tell us gas is expensive because they're running their business as any publicly traded company should be run - with shareholder interests in mind. Record profits = stock price goes up.

It's just too bad that consumers didn't have the vision to see how so many areas of our lives would become dependent on a single resource provided by an alarmingly few companies - not to mention how dangerous that is. We keep moving further away from our jobs and our friends and our loved ones to get into bigger and better houses - and now we must pay the ferrymen if we want to remain connected. I can't complain anymore - where I live and what I do are choices I make. I can always move.

The surest way to save on gas is to use less of it.

WANNA GET AWAY?

Here's a real-life Southwest Airlines commercial from Cambridge, England.

According to reports, a visitor to the Fitzwilliam Museum tripped on his own shoelace at the top of a flight of stairs, took a tumble down them and crashed into a window sill - bringing down three Qing dynasty Chinese vases from the late 17th century. Oops. Wanna get away??

One good trip deserves another.

The vases had been donated to The Fitzwilliam Museum in the city of Cambridge back in 1948, and were among the best-known artifacts in the museum's collection. They had been safe on their window sill perch for 40 years before crashing to the floor. The museum director was kind in the wake of the accident: "It was a most unfortunate and regrettable accident, but we are glad that the visitor involved was able to leave the museum unharmed."

The Museum has reported intentions to put the Qingty dumpty collection back together again, despite its many fragments.

SPAM I AM

To all of my well-intended friends who continue to send me warnings year after year that my cell phone number is about to be released to a plundering horde of telemarketers, please visit this link.

This recurring SPAM nightmare is not true, yet continues to live despite my numerous attempts to kill it with heavily promoted doses of the truth. Please share this message with your friends so they will sleep better at night. The only people authorized to call your cell phone number are the people you have given it to. Or the people who found it scribbled in pen on the bathroom wall.

That's all you need to know about that.

TODAY IS THE DAY

They're gonna throw it back to you.

MICROSOFT OFFICE SWEET