The Real Conspiracy

Hang on to your bonnet, baby, because I’ve uncovered a massive international conspiracy.  Unfortunately, I’m such a total coward I’m too scared to name names, but I have evidence that powerful covert forces are at work — even as we speak.  These shadowy figures are grimly determined to totally suck the joy out of every aspect of human life!  Their nefarious goal is to turn every one of us into miserable Neo-Puritans, just as riddled with guilt and apprehension as they are.  And the problem is it looks as if they’re succeeding.  Check it out:

Remember when holidays were a time to take a moment, have some fun, relax and recharge the batteries?  Buckle up ’cause those days are over.  These days, holidays are a battleground.  Look at Hallowe’en!  Every costume comes with a ferocious debate.  Columbus Day?  Chris would have been better off sailing the other way.  Valentine’s Day is a minefield of who got missed in the sexual orientation parade, and Christmas?  Just forget it — between the Christmas-is-too-commercial crew and the anti-Christian lobby, even Santa Claus has tossed in the towel.  No, special occasions are a good time to keep your head down, and, just to be on the safe side, lie about your birthday on Facebook.
Celebrations?  Gone!

Have you ever wondered what happened to junk food?  Think about it!  One minute we’re chowin’ down on cheeseburgers, fries and a Coke, happy as clams. The next thing we know, it’s all 90 calorie, gluten-free, low sodium, Tai Chi chicken and kale salad.  Whoa!  The point of junk food is … it’s junk!  It’s supposed to be bad for you!  Going to McDonald’s for a salad is like going to a hooker (Oops! sex-worker) for a hug — why bother?
Junk Food?  Not gone — but smothered in guilt.

Did you know there are historical records which categorically prove that sex is supposed to be messy?  That’s right!  It involves all manner of mouth-breathing, involuntary twitches and tensions, grinding, groaning, gripping and sticky stuff.  Orgasm, for most of human existence, was a noun not a verb (the verb was a lot more folksy) and for thousands of millennia, humans had body hair — and it wasn’t icky.   The antiseptic procedures most people practice these days are designed to tear the soul out of sex and make it just one more hyper-allergenic reward challenge of “the relationship.”
The Joy of Sex?  Replaced by I’m not sure what. . . .

And we all know what “relationships” are — they’re the long-winded workaholics idea of love slowly drowning in an ocean of issues and dialogue — until finally, totally fed up, even the dog runs away from home.
Love?  Dissolved away like sugar in the rain.

It was the original Puritans who banned Christmas, discouraged poetry, art and music.  They also got rid of theatre, dance and comedy.  They believed that life was a grim business and that they knew what was best for everybody.  Our contemporary puritans are a lot sneakier but just as grim — and just as certain of their own infallibility.  They’re definitely dedicated to stomping out fun, excitement and humour.  They scare the hell out of me and I tend to keep a low profile whenever they’re around.

However, on a totally unrelated matter (nudge/nudge – wink/wink) have you ever noticed that the people on BOTH ends of the Woke/Unwoke spectrum look remarkably the same and never smile?

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!

Internet Philosophers

I don’t surf the Net very much.  I don’t have a problem with spending hours wandering through cyberspace – actually, I think it’s kinda cool – I just don’t have the time.  Basically, I stick to my favourite sites every day, and that works for me.  However, every once in a while, I go nuts and get tangled up in the web of The Web — and I’m lost in space for a couple of hours.  I never think of these Cyber adventures as time wasted.  I learned way back in the dialup days that the Internet is an enchanted garden, and once you weed out the idiots, the place is blooming with beautiful flowers.  Here’s just a small bouquet of some front porch philosophers I found the other day.

Taxation is just the yearly subscription fee you pay to live in your country; your childhood was the free trial.

Don’t ask me what’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done: I haven’t peaked yet.

I just hate it when I accidently step on my dog’s tail because I feel so guilty that I can’t properly explain that it was an accident and I’m really, really sorry.

It’s never a good sign when your fitness watch starts flashing stress warnings and you haven’t even gotten out of bed yet.

You know you were right all along when they name a hurricane after your ex.

It’s definitely love when your girlfriend comes home totally drunk, stands by the bed, starts taking off her clothes, stops and says, “I’m sure you’re awfully nice, but I have a boyfriend.”  And then walks out and goes to sleep on the sofa.

The other day I thought it would be cool if someone invented a hot veggie smoothie; then I remembered — it’s called soup.

Cargo pants are just cleverly disguised purses.

If you eat probiotic yogurt when you’re taking antibiotics, does that mean you’re coming out about even?

When I was young, I fell off my bike and fractured my ankle.  I rode my bike home.  Last week, I stubbed my toe– and I haven’t left the sofa since.

When I was young, I wanted to spend a year backpacking across Asia.  These days, I’m pissed when the bum warmer in my car isn’t warm enough.

When I was young, I thought I’d have a great career, a wild social life, a cool apartment and a retirement plan.  I ended up with mismatched wineglasses and a toilet that won’t quit flushing unless you jiggle the handle.

I hate being the parent because I always have to say no to all the same things I loved doing as a kid.

Every morning, men leave the house with nothing but their phone, their wallet and their keys.  How do they make it through the day?

That awkward moment when you ask a girl out for the first time — and then, five years later you ask her to marry you — and she says no – both times.

Finally realizing that the reason you clean the house before people come over is you don’t want them to think you actually live this way.

When you accidently fart in a meeting and it sounds like somebody’s stretching the neck of a balloon.

Telling all your friends you have a twin so you don’t have to talk to them in public.

The secret to a successful marriage is never hating each other – on the same day.

With all the crap that’s going on in the world, these days I watch The Shining to relax.

The only thing in the universe that’s worse than a Man Cold is being married to someone who has a Man Cold.

Realizing you’re excited about Valentine’s Day because you know chocolate’s going to go on sale the morning of the 15th.

“Ignore this text.  I’m pretending to add some jerk’s telephone number to my contacts.”

It’s always difficult when you find out your wife eats spaghetti with a spoon and divorce lawyers are outrageously expensive — on the same day.

You know you’ve been in lockdown too long when the kids start referring to the Amazon delivery guy as Uncle Freddie.

Single people don’t know there’s a wrong way to load the dishwasher.

The best thing about working from home is you don’t have to fight through all the lunch purses in the company refrigerator — and, sometimes, a pigeon sits on the balcony.

When coworkers, doctors and boyfriends say “we,” they usually mean “you.”

And a couple of my favourites:

You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat the people who work in restaurants.

People who add a “but” when they apologize aren’t actually apologizing.