Category: Rants

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I am sick to death of the hate

Why the fuck is it so difficult for the average Joe to wrap their paramecium brain around the concept that Gay people are strong?

Lets think about this shall we?

Gay people, once they realize they are in fact Gay have to overcome fear, persecution, and outright hatred, just so they can live their lives honestly and honorably.

If they are married when they realize they’re gay. They face legal and financial ruin.

In some states they may be forbidden from seeing their children.

In other states they face discrimination in business and housing that is sanctioned by the state. See the recent rulings in Kansas.

Gay people become “HALF CITIZENS” simply by admitting they are gay and yet still have to pay the FULL measure of TAXES.

Gay people still have to face the ridicule that is sanctioned, and in some cases demanded by the rules of the society.

It’s OK to publicly joke about gay people.

Apology after apology notwithstanding, public figures still get away with joking about gay people. Public figures do this in ways that would never be countenanced by the society if the joke was about Black, Latin or any other group of people.

Would Carson Daly have even THOUGHT about saying something like “The Jet Blue Pilot is lucky the passengers of that plane weren’t Black, if they were he’d have been robbed and killed instead of just subdued.” NOPE! Why?

Because it is unacceptable! Well folks it’s just as unacceptable to say gay people are cowards.

Even after dealing with the shit listed above… You still have to find a comfortable place within the gay community.

The Gay community is a place where youth is worshipped and in many cases age is isolating. This community actively seeks to homogenize it’s members.

I’ve met gay men that won’t admit in public things like;

They like sports

They can fix a car

They don’t identify with pride parades.

They’re Republicans (There are Personals ads that commonly say no republicans)

They own or like shooting guns

They like hunting

They’re religious

It takes more than a bit of courage to be gay, admit you’re gay, and build a decent life in spite of the obstacles set before you.

So before you make a stupid comment about gay people being cowards. Stop for just a moment and consider, could you take the heat every fucking day of your life?

 

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I’ve been looking for a job.

I’m looking for a job.

This already stressful endeavor is made all that much harder in the Southern California region because of intense competition.

No, Not competition among job seekers. It’s from Competition among Job Placement agencies.

Yes, Job placement companies have muddied things so badly that in applying for a job in my field and then seeing another position and applying for it, can result in my being disqualified from both positions.

Why? Because what appeared as two distinct positions were in fact the same position.

The Placement agencies take on things is this; Since I applied through two different agencies I’m obviously trying to create a problem about who gets the placement fee.

This hasn’t happened just once, it’s happened a number of times.

It PISSES me off!

Let me be clear.

If I apply for a position through a damn headhunter I’m pretty sure that I am qualified for the position. I take the time to fill out the headhunters little survey, I answer all the questions, I play their little game. I’ll write a cover letter, and make sure that I submit my resume to the fucking headhunter in Word format so the lazy fuck doesn’t have to do anything except press the send button on their computer.

Then I’ll keep searching the want ads. If I see another position and that position is listed in a different city with a different job description, I’ll apply for the second position in the same way. Even if the position is listed by another agency.

I’m looking for a job. That means that I need to get my resume in front of as many hiring managers as I can.

I don’t need the added complication of having to pander to some fucked up placement agency who isn’t going to do SHIT to market me to ANYONE that I don’t point to and say, “I’m a match for this open requisition”.

After I’ve applied for several positions, a few days go by and then I get either a nasty phone call or I get a hostile email saying that I’m an evil fuckwad and my resume has been pulled from client consideration. When the screaming stops, I ask “why?”

It’s usually then that I discover that one or both of the fucking headhunters were inaccurate in listing the city that the job was in.

Often these MORONS will list the address of the job placement agency INSTEAD of the actual city that the hiring company is in. In Southern California this means that you might be looking at a commute that increases from 45 minutes to an HOUR and 45 minutes. Aside from the commuting issue this makes it impossible for someone looking for a job not to innocently apply for the same position. But the agency believes they’re doing you a favor and most choose to be assholes even in the face of facts.

Usually these so called “professionals” have changed the description the hiring company sent, into something almost, but not completely different. Often the description is re-worded through a filter of shitty 3rd world cesspool English which not only misrepresents the position but serves to obfuscate any similarity between two different headhunters ads.

BUT I’m the fucker! I’m the one that is trying to be dishonest and cause problems. Yeah well FUCK YOU!

I’ve decided not to apply to ANY position that is represented by a “Job Placement Agency” if I can  help it.

After all why the hell should these bastards get 15% for doing absolutely nothing? I prefer to have that 15% as a negotiation tool.

Below is  a funny example of the sloppiness and stupidity I’m experiencing. Here is an email solicitation from one of these jerks.

I’ve redacted most of the personally identifiable information just so I don’t find myself in legal hot water.

 

Do you have Mobile Devices OR Embedded devices experience

Obviously, my name isn’t “Pcl III”.

If he’d actually read the contents of my resume he would KNOW already that I have the mobile testing experience that he’s requesting and the embedded testing experience that he’s looking for.

He’d also know my visa status and that I’m willing to relocate.

He also had an email address I haven’t used for anything in almost 6 years.

I’m not picking on Rob or his company per se. But this is the third fucked up email that they’ve sent me and the SECOND email after I got them on the phone and sent them updated information.

So it begs the question, just how efficient or real are these agencies?

A resume contains some sensitive information. By putting that information in the hands of people who obviously aren’t thinking do I expose myself to identity theft?

There are a couple of things that I need to point out.

I’m a suspicious fuck. Some might even think that I’m paranoid, so when I receive unsolicited emails I do look at the header information. Alternatively, if the email is something of no interest I just delete the email without ever opening it.

In this case since the email was about a job, I did verify that the email originated from a domain that was associated with a real company.

Rob, sorta screwed himself because he identified the company and the city that this requisition is for. Which means that I can go to the company web site and apply for the position directly. “Thanks Rob”

Since he’s not using my correct email, and thinks my name is Pcl I could apply for this position and dear ‘ol Rob will never be the wiser.

In the last five sentences of the email he makes a couple of grammatical errors that make me think Rob isn’t who he says he is. He signs his email with a typically American First and Last name. However upon further examination of the return email address in the signature line, I find rakumar@XXX.com is the “REAL” person who that would be receiving my response.

How am I supposed to feel about this?

Robs company has approached me demonstrating that they are perhaps not all that reputable.

They haven’t corrected the incorrect information they have on file about me even though they’ve been given the corrections and assured me that they would update their database.

They obviously aren’t reading the emails that they’re sending out. Which leads me to wonder how they’re perceived by the companies they’re presenting me to.

They have been untruthful about WHO I’m actually going to be dealing with.

Since their first contact is dishonest, what basis do I have to begin to believe that Robs’ company will be above board? Answer is NONE! That being said, I’m not responding to Rob, and I’ve placed his company domain name in my SPAMMER folder.

There are those who might say I’m over-reacting and I might be. Before you judge me too harshly please consider the following;

In a 30 year career, Only ONE headhunter has actually placed me in a permanent position.

Most of the placement agencies seem to hire disreputable kinds of people. Used car salesmen types come to mind.

In every job search, and especially those during economic turmoil the headhunters and placement agencies have been more of a hinderance than a help.

I’ve been told to write a cover letter, edit my resume, and write a justification for why I should be PRESENTED for a particular position by a supposedly honorable agency. The placement agent in this case used what I wrote as a justification for ANOTHER candidate. I know because that other candidate was a friend of mine. He got the job!

There is one headhunter that commonly sent emails to me which said, “You’re not a fit for this position. But pass this job description around to your friends who are…” That’s another guy that goes directly to the SPAM folder. He’s interesting because in the late ’90s and early 2000s he had his name on a building in the heart of Irvine, after 2005 his name disappeared and he’s now working for another agency as a recruiter. Karma sometimes is a wonderful thing.

If i’m going to be doing all the work anyway, I don’t want to get into a position where I’m negotiating away 15% of my annual salary just because some headhunter got his or her finger into the pie.

If you want a really scary view of todays headhunters, cruise over to Cybercoders. When you get to their web site start browsing jobs and on the left hand side to the screen you’ll be treated to a picture or pictures of the representative working to fill the position. Some of these photos are of professionals. Sadly a larger portion of these photos depict the representative in less than professional situations. I’m looking for a job, not a facebook date, and that’s exactly how the Cybercoders web site comes across. They’re another one that I typically won’t deal with. The exception being if the job is just cherry and I’m in a mood to put up with Cybercoders B.S.

Perhaps I’m just out of date… But I’d rather control who, how, and when someone receives my information. I’d prefer to have my resume placed in front of a hiring manager instead of having to be written to get past someone whose English proficiency isn’t above the 7th grade.

I’m funny about that kind of thing.

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I’m smoking hot. (Updated)

Smoking MfTD6 28802

Got Pissed off the other day (I know what else is new?)

In this case I was first annoyed, then irritated, then flat out pissed off and I really wasn’t sure why.

Part of it was that I was watching Television. (Almost always assured to make me mad)

Then it hit me… it’s the never-ending series of anti smoking commercials that play hourly in Los Angeles.

The first series of commercials were annoying…

They almost always showed a White person smoking. The first one showed a White man smoking in his apartment dressed in a wife beater reading the sports page. Then they follow the cigarette smoke through the vents in the building to another apartment where like an ominous demonic fog it surrounds a child of indeterminate (but clearly not white) ethnicity.

This commercial is an attempt to demonize cigarette smoking but it also does a wonderful job of re-enforcing the image of  a stereotypical White man. The subtext is that the White man is evil, he doesn’t care about who he hurts and he’s in cahoots with the demonic cigarette companies to kill all minorities.

This one annoyed me on a couple of levels.

A) The portrayal of the White man. If a similar stereotypical portrayal of a Black man, or Mexican man were to be shown on TV, there would be screams of racism from the ALCU, NAACP, LA RAZA, Jesse Jackson, Lou Sharpton, and god only knows who else. But for some reason White stereotypes are allowed. Just as gay stereotypes and gay people are still allowed to be denigrated on stage in comedy routines or in your local bar as a matter of common conversation. (You can’t have a person of Polish origin as the butt of a joke anymore but change Pollack to Fag and all the sudden it’s ok.)

B) Typically vents aren’t directly connected between apartments so it’s unrealistic to portray that smoke is going to move so easily between dwellings. You’d have the smoke cycled into a furnace or A/C unit so while I’m sure there would still be some particulates identifiable from the cigarette, I’m equally sure that you’d have far more pollutants from cars and busses driving by on the street outside the apartments. Those pollutants actually being sucked in by the A/C or Furnace air intakes.

The second commercial in the series shows a white woman, (although in later iterations of the commercial she is less white. It looks like her skin tone was changed digitally)  standing on her balcony smoking a cigarette. In this one we’re treated to the same demonic smoke effect. This time the smoke is  flowing down into the adjacent apartment where we see it pause over an ethnic baby in a crib. Once over the baby the smoke takes on a claw like menacing appearance. The tag line was something like “there are some people that can’t escape cigarette smoke”

This second commercial was as annoying as the first because anyone who smokes knows that smoke typically rises and dissipates.

Yeah… I used to smoke. I finally quit smoking in about 2000. It was tough, but the combination of beginning a workout routine and drinking water like a fiend really helped me make it permanent. I’d quit before for a couple of years but then I was in a bar, with a friend and one of his Benson & Hedges looked really good. That was when I found out the true meaning of “Slippery Slope“.

I still miss one aspect of smoking…

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It’s that post fuck cigarette. I miss laying in the dark an ashtray perched on my sweaty chest and the rush of the first drag from a cigarette. I miss the glow of the end of the cigarette and knowing that my partner & I are going to fuck some more and I’m going to get off a couple more times before we crash for the night.

But I don’t miss it enough to start smoking again,  while I can write about it fondly I like breathing easily better.

The most recent set of commercials from LAQuits (Los Angeles Department of Health) are the commercials that really got me fired up and took me from annoyed… to PISSED off.

These commercials show people with emphysema. They’re on oxygen and they’re wheezing and clearly in a great deal of distress. I don’t know if these are real people or actors and I don’t care.

I find these commercials offensive in so many ways I can’t see straight. If I had to pick the top reason for my annoyance it’s this…

Lucky strike usa

I visited my Father in the hospital when he was very much like the people being portrayed. I loved my Father, but I don’t appreciate watching TV and being taken back 20 years to my Fathers death, every 16 minutes.

I watch local TV for the News, and some entertainment (4 shows)… The rest of the time I’m watching DVDs or Netflix. So it’s surprising that a commercial like this would rise above my annoyance threshold.

The other night it seemed like every other commercial was of these people suffering for their next breath. All I could see was my Dad, lying in that hospital bed and knowing that he was going to  die soon.

Oh I’m not asking for pity. Nor would my Father. He smoked and he drank, and most importantly… My Father accepted responsibility for his own actions and the consequences of those actions. My father smoked pretty much every day of his adult life, and possibly well before he became an adult. He smoked Lucky Strikes, to this day I can’t see a package of Luckies without thinking of my Dad.

Yeah, I agree Smoking is bad. I say that as an ex-smoker myself, But… and this is a very important but. I believe that each and every one of us should be allowed to choose to smoke or not to. Moreover all of us must accept responsibility for our choices.

I think putting offensive ads like this on TV doesn’t put people off smoking… I think these shock tactic ads serve no purpose other than to offend some of us, and add to the desensitization of the rest of the population.
If, as it’s been postulated seeing violence on TV makes us more violent then doesn’t it follow seeing suffering on TV makes us less compassionate?

For those of you outside the Los Angeles area…

The small cities that make up LA have become little gestapo headquarters.  You can’t smoke in a bar, on the beach, within 1000 feet of a public entrance or exit to a building. There have been moves to prohibit smoking in apartments, and even within the confines of YOUR OWN HOME in certain cities.

Is this freedom? NO… This is a socialist state.

This is a small group of people deciding “For the greater good… we appoint ourselves messiah and will enact laws to protect you poor ignorant savages from yourselves.”

This kind of thinking is offensive for a whole bunch of reasons. The biggest deals with my belief in minor things like the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and Bill of Rights. I know these are foreign and archaic concepts to a lot of people, but they’re important to me.

I went to the LAQuits website. I was going to post a simple little message asking them to stop airing the latest commercials and explain why… That was when I found that their web site didn’t even have a way to contact them.

And then… I GOT REALLY MAD! Which led to my writing this blog. I needed to get it out of my system before I tracked down the numbers for the LA County Department of Health. Where I plan to express my concerns without being emotional about it…

Hopefully!

—– UPDATE —–

After writing a polite letter explaining that I was offended and why… The Los Angeles County Health Department hasn’t responded (4 weeks now) . Not that I’m at all surprised. After all I’m just another evil White Man trying to oppress someone, somewhere, right?

Apparently I’m not alone in being offended. When I tweeted about my annoyance over these adds There were a few responses expressing the same feelings. These were folks that like me didn’t want to relive their loved ones passing.

Of course these anti smoking commercials are “For the Greater Good” So it doesn’t matter that people like me just aren’t watching TV anymore. I’ve seriously been considering discontinuing my satellite service for a variety of other reasons anyway. Being terrorized every fucking time I sit down to watch TV is just another reason.

Those of you in the rest of the country, are soon going to know exactly what I’m talking about. Apparently, the Federal Government is going to spend 54 million on a nationwide campaign. I figure that should help KILL the rest of public television in this country.

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Locusts

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The author John Ringo described a kind of people in one of his books as Locusts or Grasshoppers I don’t remember the exact wording. For the purposes of this post the difference between the creatures isn’t all that important.

I’m going to very liberally describe what I took away from Ringos book. With apologies to Mr. Ringo if I screw this up too much.

Ringo describes a class of people that are essentially users, They contribute little to the society except telling all the rest of us what we’re doing wrong and how the contributors in the world are damaging, the Earth, the sky, the water, crops, whatever… you get the picture.

At the very same time these people have high expectations. They believe that they will never have to go hungry or thirsty, or shiver in the cold. They believe that the system, the state, the world can , will, and SHOULD take care of them no matter what.

One of the characteristics of these people is that they will move into a nice area, consume the resources, demand changes in laws, rules, and local societies until the nice place they moved into is no longer nice.

Streets can’t be fixed because the asphalt is bad for the environment and stinky, besides.

Pesticides can’t be used to grow our crops because the pesticide is dangerous. We have to grow everthing organically because it’s better for the environment, (What? We get less edible food growing organically? you must be doing something wrong.)

People can’t smoke in their homes because the smoke might hurt someone living 2 doors down and you can’t smoke outside because it’s a bad example for anyone who might see you smoking. (As an aside I’m glad I quit smoking, but Damn! All the anti-smoking laws and ordinances are just plain wrong!)

Calif real estate 0726

After the locusts have been in an area a while, the very things they liked about the area are gone. Swept away in a tide of legalese and nonsensical Locust/User thinking. At this point the locusts move on, property values that were artificially inflated by their presence plummet. While the locusts don’t have an agenda of scorched earth… the effect is the same.

His description, is apt and I think I have a Locust or a perhaps groups of Locusts living next door to me.

It’s a pity really, because the former occupant / owner of the the house immediately adjacent to me was a love and I miss her dearly.

The house further up the block was occupied by a guy that was for all intents and purposes Crazy with a capital C but he pulled his weight and minded his own business right up until adult protective services put him in a hospital when the neighbors figured out that he was living in his car. Yep, he lived in his car parked in the driveway of his house, he only went inside to poo and get ice from his fridge.

Both of these people, one 70 years old and the other crazy as a loon would clear the snow from their driveways, and help in clearing the snow from the common street in front of our homes. Why? because it was in all of our best interests and neither of them were locusts.

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They looked after their yards, they picked up trash they saw around the neighborhood even if it wasn’t theirs… You know, sometimes a bag or peice of paper gets away from the trash truck and ends up blowing around… It’s not a difficult thing to go pick stuff like that up and put in in your bin so that next week the trash truck does haul it away.

Give me old folks and crazy people rather than what I have now!

Right next door, there are at least two 18 to 25 year olds (one male & one female) Plus an older woman, older yes… but younger than me!

I don’t really know how many people are living there, the number seems to fluctuate fairly regularly. That makes me nervous enough… What annoys me is that these Locusts have not and apparently never will get their asses outside to shovel even Their OWN Driveway much less the little strip of street in front of their house.

The house of the crazy man has been purchased, donated, or by some fashion come into possession of an animal shelter.

The owner of the animal shelter came down and introduced herself. She had an accident last year and since then I haven’t seen her. What I do see is a single fairly young woman, in a red truck. Who on more than one occasion has treated me like THE HELP. Including suggesting that I started earlier on the shoveling since she couldn’t get into the street and had to walk up to the house.

SAY WHAT?!?!?!

I looked at her for about a millisecond and said “I’m not the groundskeeper, the road isn’t county maintained and you’re benefiting from my largess in the first place. Im not getting paid to do this.” She actually motioned for me to get back to work and walked away.

I was stunned… Then I figured lets just back this train the fuck up.

I stopped shoveling and pulled my 4×4 into position in my shoveled driveway. I can easily drive over 6″- 8″ of snow without even putting the transmission in 4Wheel LOW.

Screw ’em!

Bigsnow2 20100123

I’m an asshole! it’s MY Nature! I was trying to be nice… it’s a lot easier for me to think about their houses as potential food stores when the zombie apocalypse comes.

The point is. I’ve been mentioned in town as “The Nicest Neighbor…” and that seems to mean to these people that I’m their servant.

Well screw that! I’m only shoveling The bare minimum for my 4×4 to get out and they can remain snowbound by 2 inches of snow or get off their lazy asses. Fuck ’em!

If you aren’t prepared… you deserve what you get!

I cleared my driveway, and the road from my driveway down to the main road. All it took was 30 minutes simple… Why would I do it since I don’t need to go anywhere? I want to be able to take the fun car also known as the (Aryan Eco-Destroyer) out over the weekend if I feel better.

The sun hitting the pavement will make that happen. So I was being selfish….

Now I’m going back to bed to sleep the rest of this cold from hell out of my system.

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And we wonder why we’re in the fix we’re in.

I admit, I’ve been interested in the Presidential campaign.

One of the saddest things that I’ve seen recently (Aside from the candidates) is the comment section below “News” articles.

These reader/viewer comments are often startling in their venom, illiteracy, and obvious incomprehension of the topic at hand.

I’m no English professor. I regularly screw up punctuation. Sometimes I even allow a misspelled word to end up in public view.

But when I read something like this:

“Mit romney half of you he can take you there because of his back ground as a business man… Ron paul on the other hand his convencing is believable”

I am startled.

When I see additional comments in the same article like those below I’m afraid.

we have all seen the prank with the walking whined up dentures you set them down and then they flip flop .. click clack and chatter all over the place both sounding and looking totality ridicious … well meet Willard … GOP Please … guys enough ….

 

yes Mitt You an outsider alright how many Americans can give their children one hundren million dollars. The only things that out with Mitt is He not wanting to pay his equal share of taxes. and not supporting His country by putting His money in off shore by dodgeing taxs Liar

These are comments supposedly from “average” citizens. Two of the three are from states where the average educational level of the population exceeds Baccalaureate. These are three of 7 comments from the same article about Mitt Romneys address to the CPAC.

The first one is striking because, aside from it’s incomprehensible message, the writer also misspelled Mitt. For goodness sakes, the mans name appears in print multiple times in the article and it’s in the freaking headline!

These people are voting… One wonders if they are voting based on what they READ and understand, or what the talking heads on the news channels are saying.

If these people are representative of American Voters… It’s no wonder we’ve got the mess in Washington that we do.

Truly, the internet is the great equalizer. It gives voice to all village idiots at once…