Dangerous Notes

I usually have a lot going on but only part of my brain engaged on whatever I'm doing. My stream of conciousness has a lot of creeks branching off. Now Dopple-G is another story. Instead of a stream of conciousness he has a white water rapids. But I digress.

To make sure that I don't forget any of these thought streams before I've had a chance to explore them I leave myself notes. I have a post-it note dispenser on my desk at home. At work I have a steno pad. There's a dry erase board on my refrigerator. I've got an Ideas.txt file on my desktop. I leave notes all over, like rabbit droppings. Hey, good analogy there - we'll call them "thought nuggets".

The dry erase board gave me a pause this morning. I haven't cleaned the livesexchat ideas off of it in a while so it has accumulated a little pile of nuggets. I had also used it to put down some recipe parts while I was cooking. The end result is peculiar to say the least:

Solar powered

325 degrees

10 to 12 minutes

If they aren't screaming, you're not doing it right.

Sounds like a recipe out of The Hansel & Grettle Cookbook. I better get that cleared off before Mom flies down. Sheesh.

Sick of Survivor Yet?

Then shame on you! We're just getting into the good stuff now. But still, there are other worthies out there that can complement our battle to the death.

Nick Queen over at Patriot Paradox is organizing a Blog Tournament. Currently the tourney needs both contestants and judges. This livejasmin contest runs in a two week cycle so even if you don't get into the first edition it shouldn't be long before you're playing.

I wouldn't recommend playing in two contests at the same time, which is why I've volunteered to help with judging but won't be competing until after Dec 03. The rest of my island friends will have relatively shorter times to wait before being able to join the Patriot Paradox tournament without conflicts. Jeff, you can go ahead and sign up now.

Nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye!

Everybody wave goodbye to Jeff as he doggy paddles away from Survivor Blogosphere Island. Jeff was the second elimination in our little blog game and once again the vote was unanimous (excepting Jeff's vote as he voted to kick me off -the jerk).

Though he's off of the island he should have some consolation that he's at least done his part in helping me to my ultimate victory.

And to my jasminlive ladies: Please note that 100% of the people who have voted to kick me off of the island are no longer with us. Remember this when contemplating future votes.

Sorry, but...

I'm going to offend some people with this post. I'll probably get some hate mail and some harsh comments and may even lose some regular readers. That sucks but it's also the way of the world. If you have an opinion there are going to be people who disagree with it. If you can state it in an obsequious manner you'll probably do okay. People will line up to defend a timid speaker. Be nice, they'll say. He's wrong but it's because he's confused. Explain it to him in simple terms and you'll see that he's not truly evil. If, however, you happen to be the sort of person who states his opinion in a raw and coldhearted fashion then you'll piss off many folks. Even some who might ordinarily support your position. Can you guess which one I am? Let's begin:

Midgets Need To Get Their Heads Out of Their Asses

I saw a special presentation about an operation that little people(TM) can undergo in order to get taller. It involves implanting an external metal brace into the long bones of the legs. The bones are broken and separated. The bracing is then continuously lengthened. The healing process of the broken bones causes them to grow towards each other. As the gap of the break is consistently maintained the effect is a gradual lengthening of the legs.

It's painful. It takes a long time. It's good for only a couple of inches. There are many post-procedure problems including weakened bones, arthritis, bone and muscle pain. Sense of balance is seriously compromised and the patient is clumsy and awkward for quite some time.

One of the patients who was interviewed told of all of these problems but dismissed them as negligible. You see, he can now do things like drive an unmodified car. He can ride on a roller coaster. He uses the cupboards at his apartment. In fact his only regret about having the procedure is that he is now an outcast from his community. You see, those jokes on Seinfeld about little people(tm) "heightening" weren't jokes. It really is viewed as a serious breach of etiquette to wear tall shoes or otherwise compensate for (lack of) height. Having this operation makes a little person an outcast from the little person community.

This leads to an obvious question which I will direct to the little community at large:

How do you get such an oversized head so firmly implanted in your anal sphincter? Come the fuck on! It's a birth defect. It is not normal to be a midget/dwarf/little fellow. It is neither amoral or foolish for somebody with a birth defect to use devices and procedures to overcome that defect. Should somebody born with one arm forgo a prosthetic one? If I had a procedure that cured Downs Syndrome do you think that all of the Downs' afflicted out there would rally to attack a person who went through that procedure because they wanted to be normal?

YOU ARE NOT NORMAL. Get it through your skulls. I'm not saying that you should be ashamed of being small. I'm saying that you shouldn't be carrying around a chip on your vertically challenged shoulder because of it. It's a birth defect, a freak happening of nature, one of the more common of literally thousands of documented and understood genetic mishaps. It should not be either a badge of honor or a Sysephean burden.

If you have a chance to correct it then do so! And if you are so wrapped up in a communal pity party that you can't bear the thought of fixing what's wrong with you then at least have the fucking courtesy to support somebody with the courage to do so himself. The way that guy was treated, the exposure of the intollerance and antagonism in the little community, was sickening. He showed bravery and courage, going through a painful procedure in order to make his life better, already knowing that his friends would turn on him. He didn't deserve the way he was treated and to be quite frank those "friends" certainly didn't deserve him.

Fire away.

UPDATE: I wrote this quite a while ago and never posted it. Generally I try not to post things when I'm pissed about the subject. A decent rant is fine but when I'm very irritated I tend to get more insulting than descriptive so a "Jim is pissed" post generally won't do anything constructive. I figured that I would let it sit and revisit it, edit it in a calm voice and then post it. It ended up getting lost and forgotten until yesterday. I looked it over with the intent of editing out the more inflammatory insults and profanity but have decided to present it as-is instead. It's not as overwhelmingly antagonistic as I thought when I first wrote it and the anger the subject raised in me back then has been fairly well rekindled by rereading it.

A banking we will go, a banking we will go, high-o the derry-o a banking we will go.

Helen's having a bit of a bother trying to open a bank account in merry old England. You know how it is - they want three forms of ID, utility bills, body fluids, firstborn child, etceteras.

I had a bank experience like that. It was back many a year when we were putting a new roof on my Dad's house. It was a lovely Saturday, just about 140 degrees on the roof (or near enough you couldn't tell the difference). We were pounding away and laying shingles when out of the house pops my step-mum. Normally this was a welcome occurence as she'd be bringing out iced tea or cool-aid, or perhaps sandwiches and a beer ration. Hopes for cool beverages or sustenance were crushed when a quick glance showed her hands to be empty.

Lo, she said unto me: "Jim, didn't you have to go to the bank today?" This struck me as an odd question. Of course I did. I had spoken of it quite specifically the night previous. My aquisition of my very first muscle car (a 1970 Mustang Grande) would be jeapordized were I to miss hitting the bank this day. A thought occured to me then and I asked her "Prithee, what time is it?" Her reply of "It is approximately 2 minutes before the bank closes. Or, using the New Math, it is exactly 42 seconds too late for you to get to the bank regardless of what you do to try to speed up your travel process" did not fill me with joyous feelings. However, I was always a polite lad and responded thusly. "Thank thee, m'lady. Wouldst thou care to remove thine self from my directeth patheth as I shall be travelling forthwith post haste?"

I then battled Saturday shopping traffic at the busiest supermarket in the Greater Buffalo Metro Area (despite the name it really isn't that great of an area) as I mentally counted down the pathetic store of seconds I had available to reach my destination and the picture of my beautiful racer (the 1970 Mustang Grande, for those of you with short term memory loss) grew fainter in my mind's eye. I made it into the parking lot and just barely beat some station wagon driving mom with a dozen kids in her car into the only spot within a quarter mile of the store. Okay, so technically she was already backing in to the spot but since there was enough room to sneak my Chevette in I didn't really break any laws.

So I arrived at the bank office in my ripped and tar splattered t-shirt, cutoff sweat shorts without most of the ass or crotch portions and my whole self completely soaked with sweat to the point that I looked as if I had just walked through a tropical deluge. And some harridan with a flock of kids tagging on my heels and screaming at me. But I arrived just a fraction of a second before they could get the rolly gate thing down over the counter. Heh.

I had a seriously difficult time getting my vehicle loan approved. It was a matter of proprieties as my credit wasn't in doubt. The problem was that although they very much wanted Mr.James Peacock to owe them several thousands of dollars, they were not entirely sure that I was indeed said Mr.James Peacock. We were stuck on the utility bill, of which I had none. I'm not sure why they require a utility bill. Oh, I know that it's supposed to prove that you are living where you are living but doesn't your driver's licence already do that? Isn't a lease a pretty good statement of where you reside? No, these were not sufficient. A utility bill was required and I didn't have one. It wasn't that I didn't want to have one, it was simply that I couldn't have one seeing as I was at that time renting a room from my parents and they had such an appreciation for running water and electricity that they insisted on keeping said utilities in their own name.

Eventually the loan officer realized that she was sitting in a bank branch office in a supermarket on the first really nice Saturday afternoon of spring after a hellacious Buffalo winter and she came to her senses. She accepted my military ID and library card in lieu of a utility bill and a quick peck on the cheek instead of the normal blood test and chromosome mapping.

And so by the grace of some calamitous spirit with more hated for me more than I would have expected any posthumous entity to possess I acquired a loan to purchase what was for a very short time (roughly the first ride home) my first dream car but quickly turned into a hellacious money sponge that eventually was traded in an even exchange for two cases of beer.

Youth and banking just don't mix.