just did my taxes

getting back like 1300 bucks!!! after i pay Virginia out of the return, more like 1100 bucks... maybe two !! for that. well, then i pay may dude 80 bucks.... so basically 1000 bucks. pretty ! if you know what i mean. 1000 bucks, just for being me. or, just for paying a lot... or however that works.

ok. i have been grooming a new pet. in a private stall. feeding him oats and steroids. brushing him a dozen times daily. i feel that this is the time. it is as if the stars have all, well, just kinda kept being themselves...... the time is right to show you my pride and joy. my high horse.

ladies and gentlemen. i pay the fuck out of some taxes. i have no kids. i have no wife. i have no stocks. i dont keep anything in my banks savings account. i dont live in an area effected by a hurricane. i have no write offs. sure, i could make up a bunch of shit and save some money, but i dont. cus thats lying. i pay what i pay in taxes because that is what i am supposed to pay. im not looking for loop holes or short cuts to savings. i pay what i am supposed to pay. take a guess what that is. if you said between 30-35% then you are amazingly correct. a lot of you probably pay a similar amount. maybe some pay less. i doubt very many (if any at all) pay more.

why am i bringing this up? because once again i heard someone complain about how much health care is going to cost us and how the liberals are sucking the hard earned money out of their pockets. fuck that mother fucker. yes, expletive needed. fuck that mother fucker. you may think i am missing some point, or being naive, or that i dont understand the tax system and its failings or strengths... suck it.

i work for what i earn. i work for what is taken. the things that i have are a part of my life because i went out and made an effort to make my life better. do i have enough, do i need more? i have too much.  i need less. sometimes i feel like i cant spend enough. other times things feel just right. every now and then im like "oh fuck, how am i going to come up with that?" either way, i know that i am still way better off that a lot of people in this country and certainly dozens of lifestyles better than billions across the face of the planet despite how hard they may or may not work. i have the freaking heater on even when i am not home so that my beer doesnt get below a certain temperature. why? because i can pay for it. why? because no matter how much is taken out of my check each week, i still have too much money. why? because i am not so greedy that i desire a life beyond my means or one that is in line with someone more financially successful.

go ahead. take that 35%. i am happy to give it. ya know what.... take 40%. i dont even care what failing government program it ends up funding. i have no issues sharing the fruits of my labor. like i mentioned, most of the time i cant even spend it all... cus im not a dick who needs a 200 dollar pair of shoes to get laid. or hot water as soon as i turn on the sink, or a house with wasted rooms just to show off furniture i will never use. yes, i have hobbies. there are things that i own that are certainly a snub to those who have nothing. almost all of that is to make beer..... and you know what... you want some beer, come over. i will pour you free beer.

dont be a fucking greedy asshole. if you complain to me one time ever, about how the government takes too much and there are people out there on a free ride..... just know, i am better than you are. without a doubt, I AM BETTER THAN YOU ARE!! i will ride past you on my high horse and put my foot to your greedy little face so hard that buries you in the shit left behind. you fucking greedy bastard.

conglomerate

i wrote out this useless list of things. i posted part of it on the internet for review and the rest was just scribblings of average rants i crumpled up out of self respect. if i had compiled these ideas into a shitty book you could call it "generic title: and a subtext that explains why you dont want to read it". cus thats what makes america want to keep on reading.

the most sculpted and aromatic chunks of shit will be featured.

i have the heat on. its set for 72. there are thermostats on each and every carboy. some say 66. some say 68. right before i get in bed i drop that heater to 66. while i am sleeping i can not stay informed in regards to the temperature of the bottles. based simply on averages, i am inclined to believe my room is 62. i bury my body under one sheet and one heavy blanket. after just a couple of hours move their way into yesterday, i am awake.

i got a queen bed because i wanted room for someone other than me. i was fine in a double but the suggestive people in my life seemed to think i needed some snuggle space. so i snuggle with pillows. the only saving grace.... when this disgusting fit of hyperhidrosis strikes, i can roll over into a dry spot. by morning, most nights, i have tossed 50% of the pillows to the floor and poured nearly 32oz of rehydration back into my body. i fear i have wet the bed.

webmd makes it pretty clear i have some sort of terminal disease or menopause. either one is fine as long as i dont know about it.

had it not been happening for more than a few days i would be pretty positive that it was because i forked out good money for the certain non-sleep-sweat related cause of my own death. i laid down 50 dollars for objects specifically designed to kill people. i live in a household of heavy drinking. instead of cancer, or  hypoglycemia i can imagine some sort of testosterone explosion in perfect symmetry with a shotgun slug landing in my chest.  laying on the floor of my kitchen with my lungs on the wall while my shit faced room mate explains how awesome he will be by stopping an intruder with his new birthday presents. who will save me then? god? the pope? oh wait, there is no pope.

no pope. its just like in the bible. not one fucking mention. so weird that one of the most important positions, like THE most important aside from jesus, was never mentioned in the entire text that catholics use to support their belief. to steal from reddit, we are without pope for a matter of days, we cure aids... who does it... dr gay.

ok, thats enough. im not going to try and mix in all of the other shit that i posted on google+ before getting this started. i have to do my taxes in the morning. maybe i should just go to bed. maybe, a damned good night's sleep will bring me back to gentle sanity. or maybe not (yeah, i snuck in one more google+ topic)

taking the long way

john fogerty got better with age. ive got a rechargeable battery powered speaker and phone that is a jukebox to back me up. though, to actually prove it i would have to invite you to this outskirts-of-atlanta-wyndham-hotel-room where you may or may not be grossed out by winters gift to me of a more efficiently warmed torso. nature is an ass. my legs and arms and fingers and toes and face stay the same.... this barrel of bryan that lives between my neck and nether regions just seems to grow larger. as if it was made to age the alcohol i keep adding.

im full before i eat. my collection of medium plain black t shirts is quickly becoming the frustrating camouflage that keeps the more appropriate larges in hiding. if my belt buckle had eyes, it would no longer need sunglasses. that's not where i wanna go with this.

the other half of this king bed, ya know, what has room left despite my pale, white, hairy, fleshy, recreation of the earths moon, yeah... the other half, a targus backpack that has held up since 2001. every zipper ripped halfway open, cables spilling out like ring worms on a rampage and battery powered computing devices scattered like body parts in a mine field. (both shitty metaphors) laptop, chromebook, phone, ipad. lifeless. in the middle of atlanta, in a major hotel chain, sprint and paid "hi-speed internet" in the hotel have failed. i am alone in the world. no digital stethoscope to test the collective pulse of the people on this planet. its been hours since i have heard the sound of my voice. again, that is not the point.

three solid paragraphs of entirely useless keystrokes? maybe. if you cant understand how i would rather stare at a pile of technological marvels being wasted on the absence of connectivity or my ever expanding collection of calories... than press the power button and watch a serving of napalm to the brain that is american television.... than yeah, three solid paragraphs of useless keystrokes AND you are the problem. id rather be a fat information obsessed nerd than watch the fucking cake boss, or the fucking deadliest catch, or the fucking gold rush or the fucking doomsday preppers or the fucking jersey shore or fucking american idol.

one of my greatest regrets.... 50 episodes of nip/tuck. one of my greatest points of pride... not watching the rest of them.

what ever happened to hobbies? turn off the tv. pick up a passion. lather your life in alliterations. (sorry if they have gotten out of hand, its a horrible habit... there i go again). (did you really expect this to not end up as a rant?)

Since we are talking about guns and murdered children...

18 kids. gunned down on one day. horrific. nothing can take away from it.

if you are of the mind that strict gun control can not help reduce the amount of mass shootings in our country there is a good chance that you are right. i think that anyone with half a brain could see that a war on guns is just about as useless as a war on drugs. however, hopefully what i am about to point out will change your mind in favor of gun control and ownership to some degree.

let me say this, i HATE guns.

From 2005 to 2010. 6 years. In that time, The CDC has recorded 589 unintentional homicides by firearm in the age group of 1-9 year olds. On average, for the last posted 6 years, that is 49 children killed by a gun that was not being used for violence.  Common sense says that these accidental shootings are almost certainly in the home where a loaded firearm is not properly stored.

In that same time span only two more children in the same age group were killed with intent by a firearm. Even if all of those were from break-ins to the home or public shootings (which im sure they arent, many are probably the parents killing the child) then the logic is simple. It is just as likely that your child is going to be killed at home with the gun you bought to protect yourself as they are in their school or church or sleeping in their bed while you are doing the same in yours.

i will again say that i believe that banning guns is useless. but i will firmly stand behind the fact that the only gun that can not kill a child is the one that is never owned.

when is the last time you heard about an accidental killing on the news? i hate seeing a mass shooting on television as much as anyone. i also hate that people only care when the violence and trauma are condensed into one event. children are being killed by guns almost daily. young lives taken by irresponsibility and violence and we only give a shit when it is done by one crazy asshole in a school. what the FUCK is wrong with my country? its almost like americans dont actually care about the victim... as much as they just want to watch a bad guy.

your life. the sequal.

in my head i keep passing around about half a dozen cliche ways to start this blog. pushing something you have heard a million times into your head again and then trying to make it genuine or make it resonate in you greater than ever by some (failure of} persuasive prose. the concept is basic. the sales pitch should be basic as well. i suppose the reason that i am having such a hard time starting this is that i have so many different angles from which i see this so perfectly that i cant choose between them.

has beautiful woman kiss dice, shakes them up in hands, tosses.

i was born with a lot of things wrong with my heart. a few murmers, a stenosis of the aorta. just shit. otherwise, i was a normal healthy kid. during my youth i was told if i smoked, drank, or did drugs i could put stress on my heart that would be fatal. i figured it was the only one i had, better take care of it. i was faithful to the doctors orders. i was lucky and much to the surprise of the cardiologist i grew out of the major dysfunctions. i never needed open heart surgery or a transplant like many people with such problems but the fear of either of those outcomes is what kept my fidelity to professional suggestion.

graveyards. i guess a long time ago when people died other people where like "what the fuck do we do with this dead body" so the obvious answer was to just put it where you cant see it.... under our feet. i also guess that the pomp and circumstance of burials and tombstones and graveyards got tied into the most sacred thing ever. religion. it explained everything and told us how to do everything. my guess is that the reason we bury our dead now (and oh so formally) comes from a tie in of early logic and religion. i could be wrong. i am so very often wrong.

what i can not possibly be wrong about is that as people die and are buried in graveyards we dont cover those graveyards with buildings or parks. these grounds are considered sacred. untouchable. holy grounds. continuing to be correct... if we keep burying our dead and we keep not building on graveyards and we keep fucking and spitting out babies at the rate that we are.... we are going to run out of earth. so as we create life at an exponential rate, and die at the same rate, and the earth stays the same size.... at some point, the earth is the burial ground and we are inhabiting a new planet.

my heart may not have failed me, but many people do not have that same luck. i am not about to present a new idea. nothing in this next sentence will shock you. here it is.... There is something you can do that is more effective than burying your working parts just to let them decay.

i often joke that as a high school drop out who barely effected those in his direct area, i didnt do a whole lot for mankind. truthfully i try to make up for that in other ways but the joke doesnt work if i mention those. the thought continues and states that since i havent and wont do anything great for mankind while i am alive, maybe i can do something in my death. if i die and my organs or limbs or whatever, are taken to save another, i have changed the world. if my carcass on a cold medical school table helps one student learn to cure cancer, or blindness, or heart disease, or anything that brings unhappiness to this world... i have served a greater purpose. arguably more important, to real estate agents, im not taking up good land.

no matter who you are, or what you have done in your life you are not worth someone else not having life. you could be a door to door vacuum salesman or president of the US. your death is not more valuable than someone elses life. your death is not more valuable than someone elses life. your death is not more valuable than someone elses life. i could type that forever but then i couldnt have my conclusion.

if you are one of those that wants to be buried, stop. if you want to be cremated, stop. the only option that isnt INTENSELY selfish is whole body donation. make sure youre an organ donor on your drivers license. tell your family you want whole body. tell them again. make it part of your will and then tell them a few more times. if there is any doubt in your mind that this isnt the only option, please use the next 9 minutes of your life very wisely.

My post election post.

I keep reading that the only reason Obama won the election is because he is black. That since he reportedly got 94% of the black vote, he is our president again. I hear that he earned the Latino vote 3 to 1. Then I hear its because single women gave him 68% percent of their vote. Not much later, 60% of the youth vote. How many people can you blame? How many minorities can be your scapegoat before they become the majority?

I want to use general numbers here to see if I can solve some of the problems I have been trying to understand. I am just going to pluck the numbers from the racial breakdown of the census and not the numbers of eligible voters. I could not piece them together as quickly and easily that way. Besides, this is more about the breakdown of America by race and racism than it is about exact voter info.

72% of our nation claimed to be white according to the last census. That leaves 28% as the non white voters. Lets make a horrible assumption and say that if you aren't white then you voted Obama. Lets look at the fact that Obama got 51% of the popular vote. Well, taking the 28% away from that there is still 23%. So roughly 1/3 of all whites still voted for the black guy. So, do those white people hate white people? I wonder how many whites only voted Romney because he is white.

Oddly enough, the same percentage of Americans are white as those that can vote. 72% or roughly 206 million. This year there was an estimated 58% voter turn out. Quite a few percentage points lower than in 2008. That's about 121 million people that can vote and did. 85 million did not. 72% (white population) equaling 61 million white people that did not vote. If 1/3 of that had voted the same way my major league generalizations had voted for Obama and the other had voted for Romney... we would have a new Chief soon.

So maybe it isn't that the black vote went to Obama. Maybe it's that the white vote didn't go to Romney. Maybe if Romney could have identified with his own race as well as Obama identifies with all minorities and 33% of white voters, he would have won. The people blaming these small groups of voters for the ultimate destruction of Mitt Romney need to understand that you have to play to win. Even if blacks got up out of their chairs, stood in line and voted blindly on race, they played the game. They are concerned about how the government is going to effect them. That is more effort and care than all of the white people that didn't vote combined. But you have to wonder how blind their vote is... if you're ignorant enough to actually believe that it was blind. I would imagine that most of these people aren't voting just because he is black. I imagine they assume he understands what it is like to live the life of a black person. Their life. That he can fight to make the line between races disappear and make opportunity about being alive and not being white or black. Equality. Human rights. Not free handouts.I bet of the 4.1% of people in the U.S. on welfare that all of them are not all minorities. But if you're racist enough to think that a person votes on color of skin and not the policies that favor them you're racist enough to say that white people don't take handouts. Well, guess what. that still means that 24% of all minorities get up every day and go bust ass to make make this country what it is, just as much as the asshole racist old white guy who votes blindly for his bank account. Their vote counts just as much as yours does.

In truth, yes, Obama won because he got the black vote, and the Hispanic vote, the single female vote, the youth vote, the science vote, the non religious vote, the this vote, the that vote. But isn't America the great melting pot? Shouldn't the vast minorities BE the majority? If the only group of voters left are older white people who love god, guns, greed, and racism... I am glad they lost and even more glad that the America that I live in is slowly creeping it's way away from hate and selfishness.

Forward.

absent

i am purposely not blogging until after the election because in the past couple of months all i have wanted to do is rip the head off of mitt romney and make fun of people who want to vote for him. i figure once he has lost my hatred will be extinguished. only then can i sit back down and concentrate on what actually matters..... other shit that i hate.

the fucking movie star.

ginger. who are the writers who decided that some red headed chick should be called ginger?

i am not a sensitive person. i am rational and factual. i wont be outraged if you tell me im fat or if you explain to me that i may die a sooner death based on how many hot dogs i eat. i can not argue what is true. i will very calmly admit that your argument has many logical points which i can not defend. however, when you sling some comment in my direction that is flooded in inaccuracies, i can not help but interject.

when you call redheads gingers, you are wrong. you are saying to the targeted person that you have no idea what colors are which and that you lack the basic mental capacity to understand that words can sometimes mean only one of many things.

find some ginger, dig it up. cut it open. YELLOW. fuck it, even pickle it. PINK. at no point in any variation is the plant ginger red (or even auburn). to call someone with red or orange hair a ginger only amplifies your ignorance. it is without a doubt no more ludicrous than calling a white person black or indian or vise versa. in fact, the colors are so far off in terms of proper definition that you may as well be calling them a stalk of celery.

when my emotions peak in response to being called a ginger people often credit the rage to sensitivity. as i mentioned earlier, that is not the case. the reason i become so outraged is not because my feelings are hurt. it is based solely on the fact that people are making an uninformed statement. i am frustrated that the average person defaults to what they have heard and not what they know. i am confused by the overwhelming simplicity of this concept. when you use the derogatory label of ginger to describe a person with auburn hair, you are doing nothing more than firmly stating that you know nothing about something very simple and common. ginger is, and always will be FUCKING YELLOW.

when you call me a ginger. i am smiling. that is the most quiet that i can possibly be while making fun of you for being so perfectly uninformed and moronic. check your crayola, bitches.

welcome to all over the place.

back in the 80s, this guy named bob decided that people shouldnt be poor. so he decided to have a concert. the most famous and influential artists of the time and some unknown came to share in the desire to remove poverty from the face of the planet. this guy bob... in case you didn't know, he is also pink. if you dont know bob or pink, i am sorry. more specifically, if you dont know pink, you will never be a truly happy person.

there is a lot you can conclude from the concept of powerful musicians coming together to help aid in the relief of impoverished people. for me... i conclude that that bono is an asshole. dont preach anti poverty while you have a net worth of 14 bill gates. but yeah... like i said, welcome to all over the place.

back to the task at hand. in the midst of this little concert a band called queen took the stage. in case you didnt know, i fully credit the front man of queen (rip) mr freddie mercury as being the strongest and greatest frontman of popular music. there have been slightly more successful, more influential... but none better. his confidence and style are without match. i feel like most frontmen or women are just over actors who can sing. freddie... he led the crowd as a result of being freddie. this is explained and proven so perfectly in this video of radio gaga. check out 3:07.

many times over, queen's performance at live aid has been polled and regarded as the greatest live performance in known history. i believe this to be fact. the few seconds of radio gaga that you have now hopefully seen compliment this statement so well. there is no way to prove that all 70+ thousand people in the stadium were queen fans. there is no way to tell that they knew how to clap to that song. there is also no way to prove that they werent fans and didnt know. logic seems to make me think that not 100% were queen fans. that the reason they all responded was the charisma of a commanding and talented man.

there is a fear in me that as time passes people will forget what a true frontman can be. with the world enslaving itself in one directions and beibers. as the music fans of today choke themselves with rianna and jay z, they will slowly write off the true talent of a man who can effortlessly command a crowd of over 70,000 people. at the same time, i have a small faith that real music will always prevail and that the beauty of what was given to us in the talents of freddie mercury will never be rivaled.

the most touchy subject to me (oh wait, no... thats religion) is music. it is a very sacred thing. by not studying their history, people of today are ruining the legacy of bands like queen. there are no rock gods left. i am terrified that there never will be another. i have no idea what my point is other than "please, make sure you are listening to good music. actual good music."

go buy a queen record.

400

in the event you arent keeping track, this is post 400. it all started in late 2004 on myspace. due to what i felt was a pretty wonky interface, i moved the operation to blogger in 2006. it was initially an effort to keep my family and friends informed on what was going on in my life without the hassle of calling each and every one of them all the time. for many years it was simply a journal. simple comments about my day with an occasional editorial about life and the world around me. somewhere between 2008 and 2009 something changed. posts slowed down and became (i hope) more interesting and better reflected who i am and what i actually believe. it has served well as an outlet for outrage as well as a place to discover/admit/chronicle personal growth.

in the midst of traveling the world i gained some very slight popularity among a certain crowd. it was interesting to watch the page views escalate. some posts being read more than 1,000 times. i watched different parts of the globe light up on my stats page. people on parts of the planet i will never see had read my thoughts. many of them shared theirs back with comments... from the insightful to the insane. it was very rewarding to watch the subscriber count escalate. knowing there was an audience helped usher in the desire to deliver something more than a daily journal.

recently, my lifestyle change has drastically effected the stats page of blogger. removing twitter from my vernacular and not hanging out with a certain pop/rock trio has turned page views from hundreds into dozens. i am fine with that. just as it was in the beginning, it is not about numbers. however, i am grateful that those numbers helped change my agenda.

i used to have a blog for my friends and family. now i have one for me.