It got to the point where my brother’s and sisters would poke fun at him for saying his line and try to beat him to the punch before he could say it.  Back then I really didn’t get it.  As I got a bit older I thought that he was totally wrong.  People DO change… I mean, as a child I thought I was changing all the time.  The way I acted changed dramatically as I grew up and I felt like almost as if I was a different person.  Since then I have realized something.  He was right.

People don’t ever fundamentally change.  I realize that life is dynamic and a person grows and develops over time.  This is not the change that I am talking about though.  What never changes in anyone is the core of a person’s emotional motivation.  People’s immediate actions and reactions to their motivations may change but eventually they will always be back to their “unchanged” habits because even though their actions may have deviated from their “norm” the complex reason’s behind their actions have not.  They are at their center the same person and will have the same successes and failures throughout their life given enough time.  It is a constant and it is something I can count on from my friends… to act how they have acted since I have known them.  It seems like such an easy concept but most people don’t realize it to choose to ignore that fact.

This idea has helped me in understanding the people around me and why they do the things that they do.  So many people are wrapped up in the actions of others and are upset when people act a certain way.  They complain about someone for something that they do all the time instead of either coming to terms with their friend’s actions they just complain more.  To take a simple example, lets say my Sally is a flake.  She is always late and never calls when she is.  Lets say that Sally is late to a friend’s wedding.  After the ceremony the other people at the wedding would talk about how inconsiderate she was or how Sally is a jerk.  In reality though she is acting the way she always acts.  How could someone expect anything different from her?  It may have been inconsiderate of Sally to act that way, however, it should not be a surprise.  In my opinion I have two choices with people when I and getting to know them.  Can I deal with their personality and the way that they are?  If that answer is yes then I accept that person as a friend, buddy, acquaintance or whatever and understand that they have shortcomings like anyone else and not be surprised or upset when they continue a pattern of behavior.  So in my example I am either Sally’s friend and don’t beat up on her when she is late or not be Sally’s friend at all.

So many people spend time wondering if a person will change their ways or act differently.  I will save you the suspense… they won’t.  People are who they are.  They may deviate from their norm for a while but it is not sustainable and eventually they will fall back into reacting to their motivations the way that feels most comfortable for them.  It is best to just understand people’s strengths and limitations and be OK with how they act or don’t include them in your life.  Everyone would be much happier and more peaceful if the would just listen to my Uncle…

What do you think?

• Apparently there is a brother/sister combination in one of the pairs ice skating competitions.  In the article the brother complains about having to hold hands with his sister all the time but that would not be the issue for me.  Hoisting my sister up with one had about 3 inches from her camel toe would probably be a bigger problem.  I know, I know, its all an act and part of the spectacle, but it is still creepy.   I think the only worse partner to have would be your mother – that would get real weird.
• Goodbye Boner, we hardly knew ye… I really shouldn’t joke about someone committing suicide but this is just too bizarre to not mention.  I was trying to think of a former television star being involved in something more random/weird than this story.  All I could come up with would be Mr. Belvedere being gunned down during an attempted bank heist (and then drop kicking his jacket as he keeled over).  I have so many questions about this story and sadly they will all go unanswered.  Why did they name a character on a family TV show after an erect cock?  What has Boner been doing for the past 20 years that made him so depressed?  Why did he decide to off himself at the venue of the Olympics?  Bottom line is that it sucks for him and his family but, what the fuck… the whole situation is completely beyond my comprehension?  I am going to pour out a little of my drink at happy hour today for my main main Boner.
• Curling… I have to say I am a fan.  2 things: 1 – I watched this for 2 hours before going out to the bar on Saturday and I still have no idea what the rules are.  The announcers talk about everything except how the game is played.  Do they realize that there are about a half dozen people in the US that actually know the rules to curling?  They should be explaining everything that goes on as if I were watching football with a girlfriend.  During football games they explain the rules that everyone already knows but with curling they don’t mention a thing… WTF?  It is like assuming a class of third graders understands advanced thermodynamics and giving them a presentation on it.  It doesn’t make sense.  My theory is that it is a Canadian conspiracy to make Americans feel dumb.  2 – They should encourage drinking during the competition.  In all reality curling is a glorified version of shuffleboard that they have at the bar with those little iron pucks.  If those Danish chicks were wasted hurling those curling stones (see, I know the terminology, I told you I was a fan) and getting interviewed making a walk of shame in the Olympic village after their match the next morning I would be a lifelong fan.
• I saw the US vs. Canada hockey game on Sunday at the bar and really enjoyed it.  Everyone was on the edge of their seats during the 3rd period and let out a large cheer when we won.  However, after about 5 minutes no one even cared about the game.  Thinking about the poor Canadians who were probably crushed with the loss made me laugh a little.  There is a perverse joy that Americans get when they are better at things we really are not concerned with.  We love being able to say “We don’t give a shit about hockey, and we just beat your ass, suck on that.”   It should be interesting if we end up playing them again for the gold medal – I have never seen an angry Canadian before but if we beat them again the Canadian mounties better be ready quell a Canadian riot!

Alas though, the games are just about over, but so is my unpacking.  Have a great weekend!

These kinds of meetings and conversations are really just a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.  That problem is Corporate America.  A place where no one works hard or gives a fuck but everyone (according to them) is “stressed out” and “sooooo busy”.  It is a crock of shit.  80% of people work just hard enough to keep their job and most people do less than that but have become experts at hiding the trail of their laziness.  In my 10 years after college I have seen incompetence get commended, brilliance get discarded and wasteful behavior get rewarded.   I just got off the phone with a colleague who was confronting someone who had just stabbed her in the back.  My colleague had email proof of the backstabbing yet the backstabber denied the allegations and said she was trying to be a “team player” and “strategic”.  This backstabber is loved by management and is always getting promoted.  How does that kind of shit happen?  The more full of shit someone is, the more respect they get in the organization.  That is fucked up. How has society been built to have everyone doing jobs that they don’t believe in to buy things that they really don’t need?  Another good question – why am I always a whiny bitch about work on my Monday posts?

Better go swing by my bosses office before I leave because I stayed at the office late today!  Ugh… I hate this shit.

I am winding up my work day and I am in the midst of watching Tiger Wood’s apology video. There are a few things that need to be said:

• Why the fuck does Tiger have to publicly apologize for anything that he has done?  In no way have any of his actions impacted the public at large.  I don’t understand why people expect him to apologize for his actions.  It has something to do with the perverse relationship that people have with public figures in America.  Whenever they do something “wrong” they need to make some sort of public gesture for their actions even when the actions may be extremely personal in nature.  Usually people say it has something to do with being a role model to kids or with keeping sponsors but I don’t think that really answers the question.  These press conferences have become modern day public whippings.  The movie star or athlete gets up to the podium delivers a apology (which is immediately judged as genuine or not) and they are slowly “forgiven” by the world at large.  It is bizarre and I see no reason for this ritual other than for regular assholes like you and me to revel in someone very powerful rolling in the mud with the rest of us plebs.
• Tiger is not a sex addict.  He likes fucking a bunch of different women… does that remind you of something?  Yes – every single man on the planet.  If having threesomes with 9’s and 10’s who are throwing themselves at me then chalk me up as a “sex addict”.  His issue is not with him dipping his wick in any blond skank with a pulse but rather with the relationship he had with his wife while he was doing the wick dipping.  He lied to his wife and thought he could get away with it.  He was a rich and powerful guy who could fuck anyone he wanted and he did, with impunity.  He was so absorbed by his power and fame that he thought he would never be caught only to have his life come crashing down around him in an Ambien induced demolition derby in his driveway.
• At one point he talks about how he had hurt his wife, his kids and his mother.  He then looks over to his mom and for some reason I laughed. 1 – this is brutal, I couldn’t imagine talking about this kind of shit in front of my Mom.  It is the equivalent of getting caught beating off by your parents when you are 35… ouch. 2 – I looked up “dour Asian” in the dictionary and her picture was there.  The only thing more terrifying than her mug in the front row of the press conference would be if she was behind the wheel behind me on the highway.

• Of course he goes through how he is going to get “spiritually balanced”.  If you are going to play the addiction card you might as well use the religious redemption angle on this as well.  Its pathetic, every time someone fucks up they say they need to look to God to help them through.  It is such bullshit.  Tiger doesn’t need God, he needs a therapist and a masseuse who can keep a secret.

Bottom line is that Tiger did not heed any of my suggestions.  Shame on you Tiger.  You are taking the hard road and trying to atone for the transgressions.  I wish you luck in getting your marriage back on track and getting back into her panties again.  It is going to be a long hard journey that in the end may not be what you really want or have wanted.  I hope she is worth it.

Oh yeah, one more thing,  if you have not read this article yet, you really need to… comedy gold!

Aside from my drunkenness and towellessness, being downtown has been nothing but fantastic.  I can finally walk to the bars and restaurants that I most often go to and drunk driving will be down about 95%.  I should get a congratulatory letter from MADD for moving!  Another bonus that I did not realize until after I moved in was all of the interesting stuff I get to see while walking around downtown.  On my way to my car the first morning I overheard 2 bums talking.  One bum was trying to fish something out of the trash and the other stopped him short when he wanted his help and said “Hold on, I need to take a shit, then I will help you with that.”  Who said bums don’t have a schedule?  The next afternoon on my way back home I saw a guy wearing old school roller skates loading empty bottles into his 1970’s style cargo van.  It was magical, he even had the jewfro circa ‘72.  He was like Rollegirl from “Boogie Nights” except 10 times as dirty and not hot at all.  Wait… he was actually NOTHING like Rollergirl but that’s beside the point.  He could have being the star of “Rollerhobo 2: Electric Bugaloo”… damn you cruel fate!   What I am getting at is that life just got a bit drunker and more interesting for me.  Good times…

The close shots of Brees and his son almost made me toss up the 7 layer nacho dip I had been housing the whole game.  It kind of brings up a good question.  What do you say about a friends ugly baby?  The parents jam him or her in your face and you are supposed to pretend that the baby is every bit as beautiful as they think that he or she is.  I don’t think that I could do it with Brees’s kid – I would stiff-arm that thing like a opposing defense back.  Lets all just agree to let sleeping babies lie and I will hope that I never look down the barrel of Brees kid’s disfigured mug (again… I am an asshole, but you knew that already).

In other news, I am moving to a new place right now and hate life.  I own just about nothing and I still despise the whole process – I am so lazy about the whole thing it is pathetic.  I can’t help it though – manual labor and I just do not get along.  Moving seems like it is going to be a fairly straightforward process then every little thing pops up and it ends up taking 5 times as long as you thought it would.  I feel bad for the people that have a ton of stuff – I would rather give Shaq a hand-job than move a huge house worth of stuff.  I couldn’t imagine the process if I had a family and grown up furniture and I had to move.  I would absolutely lose my mind.  I hope to be done by the end of this weekend and I will finally be content – or at least as close to content as I can be heading into another work week at the salt mine.  Oh wait… no work on Monday… booooya!

In other words I’m cutting this post short and I won’t be posting again until a week from today… wish me luck on my move!

One of the reasons that I took my impromptu sabbatical from the blog was I went on vacation to Vail, Colorado.  I was initially skeptical about how much fun I would have because  (1) – Last time I was in Denver I came down with a wicked altitude related sickness that concluded with me puking at about 10,000 feet in the middle of my decent down the ski slope. (2) – I hate the cold.  After I landed I realized that (1) – I must have been a pussy when I was 13 because the altitude did not bother me at all and (2) – I only hate the cold when I need to wake up in freezing temperatures, scrape my windshield and go to work.  If it is cold and I get to do whatever I want to do the mornings are not THAT miserable when it is freezing outside.

So… I headed out to the slopes and immediately enrolled myself in the adult snowboard lessons as this was the first time I had ever been boarding and the first time in about decade I had been to anything resembling a real ski mountain.  I had a pretty good group of people in my class as far as random strangers go.  However, there was one person who I wanted to beat with my snowboard and send hurtling off the edge of a double black diamond.  He was a d-bag former marine that was quoting Wikipedia articles and telling the stupidest fucking jokes.  He tried to get on the same chair lift as me one time and I said I had the “jimmy-legs” and did not want to have an “episode” and knock him off the lift.  The shit I do just to not have small moments of annoyance in my life astounds me sometimes.  Long story short I finished up my lessons and the instructor gave me a choice to either go back down to the lodge in the gondola or to try to make it down on my own.  I chose the latter – bad fucking idea.  I thought I was a bad ass on the bunny slope but when I went on some normal green runs with other “non-bunnyhillers” I took a complete ass kicking.  After about 45 minutes, 22 wipe outs, 3 yard sales and 100+ dirty looks from other boarders and skiers I made it back to the lodge.  On a scale of physically worn out out, 1 being “getting a back rub on the couch” and 10 being “porn star after a 100 man gang bang” I think I was a solid 9.  Yay snowboarding!

After the first day I was still undaunted.  Even though it was a bit rough I saw a light at the end of the tunnel and I knew that one I got the basics down it could be really fun.  I woke up early the next morning to the only black man in Vail – the weatherman.  Having a black weatherman in Vail is like having an Asian driving instructor or a Mexican hockey coach – based on everything I know about  various cultures, it just doesn’t make sense.  Needless to say he was full of shit and I realized that in Colorado, the ski resorts are in league with the weathermen and will always forecast snow to get people to the mountain.  The second day was much better and I was able to keep up with the other snowboarder in the group… barely.  I made it off the bunny slope and graduated to a “blue” level difficulty run at the end of the day.  Go me.

I honed my boarding skills and the last day was pretty uneventful until that night when I participated in one the most hotly contested flippy-cup tournaments of my life.  It was the classic guys versus girls match up and early on, put simply, the ladies smoked us.  However, I am a wily flippy-cup veteran.  There is one rule that works no matter who I have played against.  I pick on the weakest link of the team, hope that they fuck up and then get in their head.  That worked for a while and we were up 3-1, then things fell apart… they tied it up at 3-3.  My team had already slammed a beer to pay for our weak regular season but the stakes were raised for the tournament – losers had to make snow angels immediately following their loss.  The final match devolved into me screaming at the girls to try to throw them off their flipping (there is no shame in my game) – and we won.  The taste of victory was sweet too – that snow looked cold and I was not in it.

Drunk and satisfied I spent the rest of the night on the couch watching my buddy prank call the Home Shopping Network and fuck with the people who tried to take the orders.  (Did I mention I am 30 years old?)  He may or may not have asked to purchase “granny panties” that used about “a yard of fabric” or described the guy selling the get rich quick info tapes as a “pervy looking Jew.”  Good times!

In conclusion… my vacation is done and I am back on the blogging horse.  Glad to see you are back with me!

I am not saying that I am above corner cutting and overall “softening” of the US’s collective intelligence, if anything, I am a product of it.  I can admit it though, a great example is my job.  I have been working in technology sales for a about ten years.  Some of it has been a never ending grind of cold calls and call metrics while other positions have been so incredibly cushy that I am surprised that someone is stupid enough to be paying me to do my job.  Right now I am in a position that is the latter but shifting to more of the former.  Most of my job is just exhibiting the appearance of work and doing anything in the background that needs to be done to attain my goals or at least be equal or better to my peers.  Sales jobs in general are a cat and mouse game between the salesperson and the executives where the executives try to game the quota system and the salespeople take the path of least resistance to get as much money as they can and not break too much of a sweat.  It disgusts me sometimes but then I look at my W-2 and everything seems OK after that.

That last sentence is part of the point that I am trying to make.  Everything is so focused on the short term results of whatever we are doing that it is difficult to zero in on any longer term damage or what we had to do (good or bad) to achieve those goals.  Sometimes my job success requires me to be shady or tell half truths to get results and I do whatever it takes because if I don’t, someone else will and where will that leave me?  Most issues that are facing the US is a culmination of that problem.  Environmental issues, the collapse of the mortgage/banking system and the health care debacle are all cases of people in charge focusing on the short term and trying to rig the system for their own interests.  Everyone is out there doing the same thing.  Why should I work hard, play by the rules and focus on sustainable long term goals when everyone else is cheating and no one seems to really care?  This is only exacerbated in oligopolies like the government and corporate America where a few key people have control over the destinies of millions.  When I screw someone over on a deal at work it only effects a few people.  When a senator or a CEO is selfish or not working for the good of the community at large it can have a terrible effect.

This sense of entitlement and short sightedness has spilled over into the world of entertainment.  Reality stars surface, skyrocket to popularity and plummet back to anonymity while the public clamors for news about people that are in the public eye not because they are talented but rather because they are aberrations from the norm.  I seldom watch these shows but when I do I watch them for the “train wreck” factor.  Really it is just me revel is other’s misfortune and idiocy.  Is that what our society has come too?  Seeing talentless idiots like “Snookie” is a cheap thrill and diminishes the collective intelligence of everyone involved.  Instead of talking with a friend, listening to some good music or reading a book people get sucked in to watching complete morons make asses of themselves on TV.

In addition to the worship of shallow idiots modern entertainment zealously feasts on the poor decisions of the talented (or at least semi-talented) people.  When someone like Tiger Woods, Michael Jackson or celebrity du jour X       fall, they fall hard.  To the glee of the media and its ravenous consumers the dirt of the fallen is paraded around until they are dropped to the level of the reader.  Only then is the public satisfied, craving the decimation of public, talented people to temper their jealousy and make them feel more important.  It always gets me when people demand an apology from a celebrity for some public gaffe.  Why does anyone give a shit if a celebrity is sorry for what they did?  I certainly couldn’t give a fuck.  It is all part of people’s self importance and the only thing the public likes to see more than no name reality show idiots rise and flame out is talented people crash disastrously.

I think at the core people are good.  Society and the environment are constantly taking that core and shaping it into what we really are at that moment – in the case of most Americans that core has been changed into a narcissistic, lazy conniving shadow of what it could be.

There is some good left though.  How can we change our current trajectory?  Damned if I know but we can’t change anything about what we are until we take a step back and realize there is a problem.  Only then can we move away from a hard fall for our own country punctuated by fingerpointing and apathy.

Geez – I guess Mondays suck… what do you think?  Is there a silver lining somewhere that I can’t see?

I have been with the same company for a while and we  have 2 of these events every year.  Each time there are a few “incidents” that make me think “You gotta be fist fucking me – there is no way someone can act like that at WORK”.  Most of the time the offenders don’t even get a slap on the wrist from HR.  The most that ever happens is that a manager sends out and email before the next conference warning not to “make references about body size or shape” or “don’t move from “friendly” to “familiar”.”  we all laugh about it and wonder why managements sends emails to us like we are children… then the events happen and all of those rules are thrown out the window.    Here are a few of my favorite “incidents” to give you an idea of what I am talking about:

Pants Shitting

Apparently someone shit their pants at the conference and no, the guilty party was not an infant.  Yes, a grown man crapped hisself.  I don’t know all of the details of the story but apparently it culminated in the offending party calling one of his coworkers and telling them that they had to leave because he had the continence of a 95 year old man.  Unbelievable – the only way I could see this possibly happening is if he gambled and lost trying to let a fart squeeze by.  I can’t stress this enough – hold back that gas if there is even a tiny chance that you may let a slider slip out.  They may have to include that line in the “warning” email that they send next year.

Infidelity

This goes hand in hand with the Vegas comment that I opened up the post with.  I have never seen so many men and women cheat on their spouses as I have at these events.  It is like a swingers party except the next week the same chick that got “eiffel tower”-ed the week before sits a cube down from you every other day.  Awwwwwwkward!  It is almost past the point of shock when I hear the stories – there have been more than 10 different occasions where I have credible knowledge of people fucking around at these events.  If my wife ever thought about going to one of these I would shackle her to the radiator until the conference was over.  I would sooner have her go to an “ex-boyfriend convention” than to hang out with her colleagues for a few days.

Drunkenness

“Go get me a drink bitch” said the Sales Director to his employee.  This happens all the time – people get fucked up and start saying things that they shouldn’t.  In a conference in San Francisco that same sales director decided it was a great idea to swing at one of his employees, swear at guys from a competing product and tell our own CEO to “fuck off”.  That douche bag is still with the company – unbelievable.  In another “incident” one of the executives was wasted and fell down the stairs of the bar we were at.  He bit it hard and hurt his leg.  A bunch of his underlings quickly surrounded him and led him into a taxi.  It looked like when John Hinkley tried to assassinate Reagan and the secret service was dragging him back to the motorcade.  That same CEO addressed us the next afternoon at 2PM and made a comment that he felt it was too early in the morning for him to be out on stage.  Ummm, dickhead?  Its not 7AM… wake the fuck up!  The company doesn’t pay you millions a year to act like Snookie on spring break!

Overall Douchiness

There is one guy in my company who thinks it is very appropriate to get “jiggy” with it every fucking time music comes on.  His style can be described as seizure-like.  Everyone eggs him on though and he seems to enjoy himself.  I guess it is a source of entertainment but when I see someone grind on the humpbacked freak from the Marketing department it makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

“Euro Activity”

One last thing that I noticed at these events is that if you are a European at a US company you can pretty much get away with anything and it is blamed on their “Euro-ness”.  At the formal cocktail hour everyone was wearing slacks and suit jackets and some guy from Italy has jeans, a t-shirt and some expensive Italian shoes on and everyone is cool with it.  If one of the French reps would have lit up a smoke in one of the training sessions I don’t think anyone would have given a shit.  I need to work for a European company and then I can blame anything I do on being an ugly American – that would be sweet.

Do you have any “incidents” that you care to share with the group?

The conscious mind disregards a bulk of the sensory information that is constantly bombarding us.  The subconscious soaks up all of that information and “stores” it deep within on psyche in ways that our conscious mind cannot access or comprehend efficiently.  Much of what we are not paying conscious attention to is superfluous mental background noise but there can be hidden insights that reside in the subconscious that are not readily “visible” to the conscious mind.  Jung postulates that we can access the knowledge stored in the recesses of the subconscious by understanding the manifestations of that part of our thought through the symbolic representations of our dreams.

The symbols of dreams take forms ranging from everyday stimulus and perceptions of the individual dreamer to common archetypes which are images, descriptive details, plot patterns or a character types that occur frequently in literature, myth, religion, or folklore.  The personal details can vary wildly in significance between individuals and do not fit any particular pattern from dreamer to dreamer – a door in a dream may represent something religious for one person and something sexual for another based on each person’s life experience.  The archetypal representations however are strikingly similar between different people and even across different cultures.  These common themes have appeared repeatedly since the advent of the modern human mind.  One such archetype is of the resurrection myth which is invoked by almost every world religion.  In this archetypal dream the person themselves or some other powerful entity defeats death or other physical limitations.  Knowing each of the personal and archetypal representations helps to decipher the jumbled communication streaming from our subconscious while dreaming.

Why is it important to have a better understanding of oneself at a subconscious level?  It is similar to when one is trying to come to a solution to a problem for a long time just to find out the answer was in front of them the whole time.  These “eureka” moments happen  and are attributable to information that has already become evident to our subconscious mind but we had not until that moment perceived it consciously.  It feels like the information came from nowhere but really it was something we had processed in the past subconsciously.  Whether it is personal insights, answers to tough questions or long standing emotional issues the subconscious can be a repository for valuable information the conscious mind obscures.

The subconscious aspect of ourselves is slowly being marginalized by a combination of rational thought and cultural/religious institutions.  Much of what we did as humans in the past relied at its base on what was “instinctual” or what “felt” right.  Ideas that do not fall within the cultural norms are often shrugged off or marginalized however there can be some interesting information buried in our subconscious that can only be accessed through the interpretation of our dream lives.

Was I on crack when I wrote this last night?  Do you have any dreams that have helped you gain further understanding in your conscious life?