Category: Life

My Sympathies!

There are tons of people in this world I truly feel sorry for — and not just the usual suspects, either.  I feel sorry for those folks who never get to ride the sympathy train — people, who, for one reason or another, have been neglected by the caring/sharing 21st century.  For example, nobody ever feels sorry for Mark Zuckerberg, but can you imagine how disheartening it must be to wake up every morning and realize you’re still Mark Zuckerberg?  See what I mean?  Anyway, here are just a few folks I feel sorry for – and why!

I feel sorry for atheists because…

They have nothing to say when somebody sneezes.
They have nothing to scream when they’re having great sex.
And they have no one to appeal to when they’re scared shitless.

I feel sorry for rich people because…

When you can buy whatever you want, whenever you want, Christmas and birthdays must be a total disappointment.
They never get super-psyched when they find money under the cushions of the sofa or in a pair of old jeans they were going to give to charity.
They never get to sit around and imagine how cool it would be to win the lottery.

I feel sorry for joggers because…

They have to go outside in the cold, the wind, the rain and all kinds of crappy weather — when sensible people have just said, “To hell with it” and curled up with a good book.
They must spend hours and hours trying to figure out how to work jogging into every conceivable conversation.
They’re the ones who always find the dead bodies.

I feel sorry for Californians because…

When people want to sound brainless, they always fake that “whatever” Valley Girl accent.
Half their state is asphalt and the other half is on fire — so how much fun can that be?
One of these days, a massive earthquake is going to come along and kill them all.

I feel sorry for sensitive men because…

Even though all the girls tell the world that you’re exactly the kinda guy they’re looking for, chances are good that the minute some bad boy comes along, you’re going to get dumped into the “friend zone.”
Every time your girlfriend says “What are you thinking?” you’ve got to scramble to come up with something — even though the only thing playing in your head is Vader’s Theme from Star Wars!
You have to spend your entire life pretending that you forgot you have testosterone.

I feel sorry for the British Royal Family because…

They always have be in a good mood and never get to just lose it and start swearing at strangers who annoy them.
They can never excuse themselves to go to the toilet.  They have to hold it – sometimes for hours.
Every moron in the world can criticize them, call them names and say they’re useless — and they can’t do anything about it.

I feel sorry for millennials because…

They have to use words like “re-gifting” and “tasking” and “self-care” — which make them all sound like complete idiots.
It must be very discouraging to spend every day rediscovering that you’re not the centre of the universe.
All the other generations think they’re assholes.

But mostly:

I feel sorry for smart people because…

They have to work twice as hard as everybody else to find an interesting movie on Netflix.
They actually understand how totally screwed the world really is.
They have to start a blog to find other smart people to talk to.

Age Is Only A Number

Bullshit!  You ever notice that the people who are constantly saying, “Age is only a number” are spouting that nonsense from the relative ignorance of a very low one?  It’s like saying, “Wine is only grape juice” when you’re a teetotaler.  The truth is, when you’re 26 – yeah — age is only a number; but when you’re 62 – nope — it’s real!

Here’s how the numbers work.

When you’re young (fresh out of the womb/shiny and new) numbers are important.  As you accumulate numbers, you get stuff (kinda like a video game.)  And the bigger the number, the more cool stuff you get.  You get to walk, you get to talk, go to school, cross the street, ride a bike, choose your own clothes, etc., etc.   And this just keeps going on and on, and it’s a grand time.  And pretty soon you’ve got enough numbers to get a handle on what life’s all about.  But then, just when you think you’ve got it covered, along comes this blast of hormones that knocks you on your ass.   

When puberty hits, the numbers grind to a halt.  For the next 5, 6 and sometimes 7 years, no matter how many numbers you collect, your life remains on hold.  You can see it just beyond the bars of your post-pubescent prison, but every time you reach for it, you get stopped cold by those two famous phrases: “You can do that — when you get older.” and “You’ll understand — when you get older.”  “When you get older” is an infinity away … but, fortunately, the numbers keep coming — and pretty soon you’re 20.

Whoa!  Out of the blue, life is great again.  The numbers are your friends.  Every time they show up, you get more cool stuff.  You get money and alcohol and ice cream (whenever you want it!) and sex (in a real bed!) and the hangovers are manageable and sleep is optional and the world loves you — cuz you’re young and smart and hot and totally cool … and OMG! can this get any better?  It’s no wonder that when we’re 20-somethings, we celebrate every new number as if we’re gladiators with free tickets to the orgy.  The world is sweet, and we’ve got Dionysus on speed-dial.  But in the midst of this bacchanalia, a weird thing happens.  The numbers start getting sneaky.  They start travelling in packs and showing up uninvited.  Until … one day we wake up and a decade or so of our numbers have disappeared, and we realize we’ve been spending the last few years washing somebody else’s underwear, talking insurance premiums (like that matters?)  And – holy crap! — that’s our minivan in the driveway.

This is the part where the numbers start piling up for no apparent reason.  Hangovers are tougher, sleep isn’t optional (but sex is) and if you eat that ice cream, your pants won’t fit.  But the real problem is you can’t tell which number is which because the difference between 42 and 46 is — uh — there is no difference!  WTF?  But then, just when you start asking yourself, “Is that all there is?” a miracle happens.

You discover you’ve finally got enough numbers for the bonus round.  And you didn’t know it, but this is what you’ve been waiting for.  Oh, yeah!  You’ve achieved numerical superiority over most of the people on the planet, and suddenly, you’re running the show.  You don’t do so many stupid things anymore, you make a lot fewer bad decisions and you don’t worry about stuff that doesn’t matter.  But, most importantly, you couldn’t care less what other people think of you.

It’s like winning the lottery!

No, folks: age isn’t only a number – it’s a reward!

Me VS The Machine

Yeah, I’m back!  What started out as a two-week hiatus to tweak my blog turned into a six month life-and-death struggle with technology.  It was man versus the machine, and the machine had me outgunned and surrounded.  (Now I know how John Conner felt.)

The problem was (and still is) that I’m a man of the 20th century, and two decades into the future I just haven’t caught up.  Let me put this into perspective – the difference, in years, between 2022 and 1990 (when I still thought I was cool) is the same as the difference between 1990 and 1958!  No wonder I have no idea what’s going on.  I’ve become my grandfather trying to understand television. 

In the beginning, everyone from YouTube to the teenagers at BestBuy said it was easy to upgrade my blog — get a new theme, add stunning graphics, put in add-ons and plug-ins and an endless supply of apps.  Lying bastards!  I clicked one icon (I swear it was one icon) and all hell broke loose.  Suddenly, my Cyber-presence (is that even a word, anymore?) looked like the Wreck of the Hesperus, and I was the one lashed to the mast.  Three or four days and a variety of increasingly creative obscenities later, I knew I needed professional help — but that just made things worse.  Every time I tried to explain or get some answers from the techies, I felt like a medieval peasant asking the priests for directions to heaven.  And no matter how faithfully I followed their instructions, I kept finding myself further and further away from salvation.  For the next few weeks (that turned into months) I alternated between unholy despair and increasingly creative curses on everyone from Johannes Gutenberg to Bill Gates.  I thought (seriously) about just pulling the plug – all of them – even the toaster.  Because, believe me, rock bottom has a basement.

But we folk of the 20th Century are made of stern stuff.  Yeah, the 2000s have crazy jihadists, Vladimir Putin and this petulant pandemic, but I survived Disco, Cabbage Patch Dolls and 80s slang (gnarly?) so the Taliban, Vlad and Covid, don’t scare me – and, come to find out — neither does omnipotent technology.

“You’re not God, you pile of plastic and silicone!  In another life, you’d be somebody’s fake boob.  I run this keyboard.  And don’t you forget it!”

And in one glorious act of liberation, I swept the carnage into a separate folder and deleted it.  So, from here on in, I don’t care about URLs, SEOs, analytics, portals, platforms, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, cuz I finally remembered one thing.  On the other end of my computer screen, there’s a person – not an algorithm!

It’s 2022.  Happy New Year, everybody!