What gloom, what gloom

This past weekend I was in Montreal for a bachelor party. Here are 10 fun facts about Montreal:

1. Montreal Sucks.

We had a fun time but it didn’t have much to do with Montreal. Sometimes people asked me if I had fun in college, and I usually say, “Yes, but it had nothing to do with my college.” That’s kind of what happens in Montreal. I’ve been there twice now, and I’ve gotten drunk and gone to strip clubs. If you like drinking and strippers, you can certainly get drunk and see strippers in Montreal. But you can do that anywhere. Being drunk and seeing naked boobies is fun, but it has nothing to do with Montreal. In fact, the bars and strip clubs are kinda lame. There were redeeming characteristics, but overall Montreal kinda sucks.

2. Montreal has bountiful pickles and French fries.

If you go eat somewhere in Montreal, they really don’t fuck around with portion sizes for pickles and French fries. We went out to a nice steak dinner (Dorothy Mantooth did not attend) on Saturday night and there were huge bowls of pickles on the table that they constantly refilled. And they were awesome pickles. I also got sandwiches twice that came with a huge portion of mediocre French fries. But, there were a lot of them. Perhaps even more interestingly, at the nice steak dinner, they put out a bowl of bacon bits.  Why? I do not know. But, we put it on our bread and it was fucking fantastic. Pickles, Fries, and Bacon Bits, all in the win column for Montreal. Unfortunately, if those 3 food items are all I can put in the win column; your culinary society is in trouble.

3. Every stripper in Montreal is from Montreal and not hotter than the strippers in America.

I found this odd because strippers in America are rarely locals. Every single stripper told us they were from Montreal. Not a single Russian or American in the bunch. Weird. To dispel a common rumor that my mom brought up, she asked me, “My co-workers want to know if you went to Montreal because they have the best strippers there?” There is a lot of strip clubs in Montreal, and we went to a pretty big/popular one on St. Catherine Street called “Sex Express”. The girls were not that hot, and they were actually fairly annoying even for strippers. One told me very bluntly that I was “coming upstairs with her to heaven!” I told her that I would be sitting in the booth drinking my $9 beer, thank you very much. I eventually got a lap dance from a 26 year old girl named Alexia who was decent, but I shit you not during the lap dance the strip club played “No More I Love You’s” by Annie Lennox. It was the definition of awkward and unintentionally hilarious. By the way I told my mom that I went to Montreal to celebrate French provincial culture as well as my friend’s nuptials. She probably bought that.

4. The Montreal Casino (Casino de Montreal) Sucks.

This is by far the worst casino I’ve ever been to (twice). The floor-men at table games openly root against you, the setup is awful, you can’t drink on the casino floor, and the casino is totally isolated from the rest of the city. I wandered around for a while before I put $100 on the craps table and proceeded to lose $99 in about 7 seconds. I threw craps about 4 times myself and the casino employees were laughing and saying “nice throw” etc. In addition to this, the casino is about 7 different floors, and there’s no real reason why. Slot machines are randomly splashed around on different floors, amidst a maze of escalators and elevators. One cool thing was they had electronic poker, which is the same thing as real poker, but there are no cards, chips, or dealers, and you’re just using a computer screen to play against the people at your table. It took me a while to figure out, but it was fun. But there is no free booze for gaming. Also it’s a 15 minute ride from anywhere else in Montreal to go to the casino. “Casino de Montreal” sucked last time I was there, and it sucked this time, too.

5. Canadian Beer is delicious, yet expensive.

We went to a local “Irish Pub” and beers were $7.50. In lieu of the exchange rate, this sucked (see below). And it wasn’t just this one place. The standard price for beers was $7-8, and the cheapest we paid for any beer was $8.99 pitchers at some random place that we were too drunk to drink at. Cheapest bottle of beer we had was $5 at the steak house. I didn’t get very drunk any night that I was in Montreal and still spent about $400 over two nights eating and going out to bars and drinking moderately.

6. The exchange rate for currency sucks.

The exchange rate is pretty much even money. When I went to Montreal about 5 years ago, and you were drinking a $7 beer, the exchange rate was about 1.5:1, so the beers were only about $4.50 American. Now, they did not adjust the prices at all, and the beers are still $7. Stupid American income.

7. The process of getting to Montreal sucks.

Thursday I took a bus from NJ to NY, and then the train from NY to CT to meet up with the bachelor. Friday morning we took a 12 seat passenger van with 8 total dudes to Montreal, and made it there in a little over 6 hours. Sunday, we got into the van at 10:30 am in Montreal. I walked into my house in New Jersey at 10:30pm. Not only that, I spent about $200 getting there to contribute to renting the van and paying for gas.

8. There are some very cool bars in Montreal, although the expensive-ness is a hindrance to that coolness.

Below is a picture of Crescent Street, which is packed with like 20 bars. 20 very expensive, overcrowded bars. If some of the bars were like 20 decibels quieter, 4 dollars less expensive for a beer, and not as full of disgusting slobs, this would be an incredible bar scene. Instead, most of the bars we went to on Crescent Street on Saturday night were deafeningly loud, had $7.50 pints of beer, and an overabundance of girls who weighed a deuce and a half wearing scantily clad dresses. Also, said girls were dancing on the dance floor to Timbaland. It was not an environment conducive to drinking $7.50 beers. It was an environment conducive to going home early to wake up for the awful car ride home.

9. They speak French in Montreal.

Seriously. Not only does Montreal have the BALLS to use a language that I don’t speak, but the French word for “states”, like United States, is “etats”, which is state spelled backward, so that’s kind of a thinly veiled ‘fuck you’ if you ask me. Also it made me feel dumb that every Montrealianiteoan spoke both French and English. Don’t mock me with your bilingual superiority!!!

10. Border cops entering Montreal are awesome. The border cops re-entering the US: Not so much.

On our way across the border, the cop joked around with us and even gave us the names of some strip clubs to go to, and let us through within 5 minutes. On the way home, we got pulled over by customs and they used a drug sniffing dog to search our totally inconspicuous white 12 passenger cargo van. They made us stand outside and tried to play mind games with us, like one of the cops telling us that the van “reeked of dope”, and asking “when was the last time that weed was in the van???” It was really dumb. I understand that they are just doing their job, and our van looked shady as hell, but would we really bring 8 guys to smuggle weed? Plus I had to go to the bathroom. It was number three. Shaving. It was a shaving emergency. (yes, that was a Sifl and Olly reference,  you’re welcome.) 

So, in conclusion, I had a good time in Montreal but it was mostly because I was with fun people who wanted to get crazy. Montreal did not necessarily facilitate our good time, it just so happened to be the soil that our fun happened on. As a side note, if you want to go to a really nice city and shop, and go to bars for one beer, Montreal is a beautiful place. However, for a drinking/gambling/strippers vacation, I would suggest you consider visiting Brew Dawgz’ underground “Mint Julip Shack/Go-Go-Rama” located conveniently in the heart of Brooklyn, NY. Try the clam strips!!!!

About a week ago, I was enduring my morning drive to work and I reluctantly flipped from the usual 89.5 WSOU frequency to the 97.1 HOT 97 frequency. Typically WSOU aka Seton Hall’s Pirate Radio is a rock/metal/punk/hardcore station, but at times they dabble in music that falls under the genre “shit”. If I am not sick of whatever CD (yeah, a CD! I do not have my I-Pod hooked up to my car) I have been listening to in a loop then I make the switch to the atavistic FM Radio. I am and have been a loyal WSOU listener, but when the aforementioned “shit” begins to emanate from the speakers then I will click the #2 preset and check out what the dark skinned persuasion is listening to this particular morning.

HOT 97 is the #1 hip-hop/R&B station in New York City and where ever the signal strength can reach to. I instantly was met with Usher’s “Love in this Club”. I listened for about 30 seconds and since then it has been stuck in my head. Well over a week it has lingered. I stay away from MTV and popular music in general, but I did see Usher perform this “track” on Saturday Night Live. I was fixated and entranced not only by the movement of Usher’s choreography, but more so his lyricism. I am greatly troubled by the message of this song. Hence forth, I dissect “Love in this Club” by Usher.

[Intro: Usher]
Gotta do it for the ladies
And I gotta keep it hood
Where we at Polo (Ayyy)
I see you Ryan
Yo Keith nigga you was right
But we just gettin’ started
Yeah man…

I tend to agree, we do have to “do it for the ladies”. Women are not revered in our current society as they should be. We are a nation of progress or we would like to think we are and yet in a Presidential race that featured the greatest opportunity for the first potential female President the criticism of Hillary Clinton was overwhelming focused on physical and superficial attributes. Ugly fat men like Rush Limbaugh saying that Hillary isn’t attractive to him and do we as a nation really want to look at her face for the next 4 years. First, Rush Limbaugh would be a lucky obese boy if he could lay one of his stubby sweaty fingers on the white alabaster, mid-western, Yale law educated nape of her Senatorial neck. Secondly, Rush Limbaugh is a faggot.

Usher is appealing to this disparity in our modern society in which the double standard is held captive in silence without a voice because we believe that we have leveled the playing field and in many cases it has only gotten worse. With women’s suffrage and with greater freedom for promotion in the work force people have forgotten about the plight of women in this male dominated country. The United States is a bear and I mean a literal bear against its citizens. As beautiful and majestic a Kodiak Grizzly can be it will tear you from head to toe and devour your entrails and leave your flesh rotting in the glow of the day sun. Our country can do the same to men, so just imagine what it is like for women. In our entertainment products it is vastly becoming a feeding frenzy for women to strip or stand aside. No matter what level of admiration from critics or fans, actresses need to bare all if they are expecting to survive in television or film and even music. Simply sex fantasies for storylines and nude pictorials on magazine racks in every town in America.

I do not want to harp on this lyric “Gotta do it for the ladies” too much more; there are plenty of lyrics left. Let us move on.

I do not know who Polo, Ryan and Keith are. Apparently, Keith was correct about something. I am a person who believes in giving credit where it is due so I applaud Usher for this. Kudos to you Keith on whatever you were correct about. I guess it was something noteworthy because it is in the first line or two of this major hit single.

[Verse 1: Usher]
i see you searchin’ for somebody
That’ll take you out and do you right (do you right)
Well come here baby and let daddy show you what it feel like (feel > like)
You know all you gotta do is tell me what you sippin’ on (sippin’ on)
And I promise that I’m gonna keep it comin’ all night long

Ok, here is where it gets creepy. It will continue to be creepy from here on out so be prepared. Usher is making it crystal clear: he is going to get you drunk and then fuck you until you can’t walk a straight line the next day. The ladies in the clubs are about 50% “searchin’ for somebody” and 50% there to dance out their problems (Dane Cook reference, remember when he was funny? I do. I was 12). The 50% that is searchin’ may or may not be ready for what Usher is trying to bring. Usher has a two point attack:

- Grindin’ - he is going to grind a new hole through your ass on that dance floor
- Drunk - he is going to get your ass drunk. Real drunk. Like throwing up in your high heels kind of drunk.

[Chorus]
Lookin’ in your eyes while you walk the other side
And I think that shorty I’ve got a thing for you
Doin’ it on purpose winding and workin’ it
I can tell by the way you lookin’ at me girl

I wanna make love in this club ayy
(make love in this club ayy, in this club ayy, in this club ayy )
I wanna make love in this club ayy
(in this club ayy, in this club ayy, in this club ayy )

From the previously mentioned two point attack strategy, Usher’s goal is “make love” to you “in this club”. This is where a cast member of Scrubs should interject with advice on not “making love” in a club and then the NBC “The more you know” should shoot across the screen. Ladies, Usher is a wordsmith. He is singing “make love”, but think about where in “this club” you would be “making love” in. There are no private bedrooms available in clubs or private rooms in general with a decent couch or a futon. If you want privacy, there is only one place you can go: the bathroom.

Usher is going to fuck you in the bathroom.

I understand Usher. There are plenty of times when you are at the club and you have had a few daiquiris and you’re on the dance floor slamming your denim sheathed cock into a lady while listening to the new Chris Brown. The thought will cross your mind in that romantic scenario that I want to “make love in this club” preferably to the girl I’m poking with the bulldog that is in a life and death fight with my new pair of Evisu. But it is a far cry from “love making”. No matter how gentle and lovingly you may try to be when you press her face into the linoleum tiled wall while hiking up her skirt from behind or pulling her jeans down; no matter how much you lightly caress her as you sit bare ass on the toilet seat covered in toilet paper squares with your balls dangling in the bowl as she rides you like a retarded cow girl; no matter how hard you try to “make love” in a club bathroom it will always be “straight fucking”.

[Verse 2: Usher]
You got some friends rollin’ with you baby then that’s cool
You can leave them with my niggas let em know that I got you
If you didn’t know, you’re the only thing that’s on my mind
Cuz the way I’m staring miss you got me wantin to give it to you all
night

Lookin’ in your eyes while you walk the other side
I can’t take it no more
Baby I’m comin’ for you
You keep doin’ it on purpose winding and working it
If we close our eyes it could be just me and you

Don’t leave your friends with his “niggas”. They are as dirty if not dirtier than Usher. I would bet the latter. Usher strikes me as a guy who would be rolling into a club deep with grimey dudes to make himself seem tougher because he looks so much like a pretty boy. That also works with his pretty boy image because compared to his boys he will come off looking like a sweet guy, but indeed he wants to get you drunk and do you in the toilet (literal and metaphorical).

Whatever it is, Miss, that you are doing please stop now. Stop now before it is too late. Usher will reel you in like a tractor beam and the next thing you’ll remember is being in the men’s room with your jeans wet around your ankles soaking up all the stray piss on the floor and (hopefully) a used condom in the toilet. So STOP IT!

I wanna make love in this club ayy
(in this club ayy , in this club, ayy in this club ayy )
I wanna make love in this club ayy
(in this club ayy , in this club ayy , in this club ayy )
I wanna make love in this club ayy
(in this club ayy , in this club, ayy in this club ayy )
I wanna make love in this club ayy
(in this club ayy , in this club, ayy in this club ayy )
(I got this - yeaa - let’s go!)

I got it already. Rapist.

[Verse 3: Young Jeezy]
I’m what you want, I’m what you need
He got you trapped, I’ll set you free
Sexually, mentally, physically, emotionally
I’ll be like your medicine, you’ll take every dose of me
It’s going down on aisle 3, I’ll bag you like some groceries
And every time you think about it you gon’ want some more of me
Bout to hit the club, make a movie yeah rated R
Pulled up like a trap star
That’s if you have yo regular car
You wanna make love to a thug in the club with his ice on
‘87 jeans and a fresh pair of Nikes on
On the couch, on the table, on the bar, or on the floor
You can meet me in the bathroom yeah you know I’m trying go

Correction. Priority #1: STAY AWAY FROM YOUNG JEEZY! Priority #2: Stay away from Usher.

Not only will Young Jeezy fuck you in the bathroom, but he will outright do it on a couch, table, the bar or simply the floor. So watch out. He is the ninja of fucking. He could sneak attack you at any moment from any shadow in the place. I would suggest that if Young Jeezy is in a club that you just leave. Walk out. There is no telling who he will target or where he will strike because the possibilities are limitless for him.

I would not say exclusively, but Young Jeezy did narrow his parameters seemingly to girls who already have a guy. “He got you trapped” could be a metaphor for “he” as in mankind and he means the world or society has you trapped and Young Jeezy will set you free by soaking you with his baby batter… in the club. I think he means more literal and wants you to cheat on your man with him… in the club. Also again, this could be metaphorical or literal, but he likes “swallowers”. I would bet all the money in the world whether this was metaphorical or literal that he likes “swallowers” anyway.

Besides all that, Young Jeezy also is under the assumption that women are purely superficial. He believes that there are women out there that would “make love” to a guy solely because he wears a lot of expensive jewelry, vintage jeans and expensive clean shoes. I have no idea where he has gotten this misinformation.

[Verse 4: Usher]
Might as well give me a kiss
If we keep touching like this
I know you scared, baby
They don’t know what we doin’
Let’s both get undressed right here
Keep it up girl and I swear
I’ma give it to you non-stop
And I don’t care who’s watchin’(watchin, watchin watchin…)

No real need to examine these lines too closely, Usher has already started fucking you at this point. If you let it go on this far then at this point he has fingers in holes and they are about to be replaced by his Manute Bol. I tried to warn you. Also it seems that you may or may not make it into the bathroom before this “love” occurs. Or Usher could be referring to a bathroom stall that has no door on it because “I don’t care who’s watchin’” sounds like someone is going to be uploading some cell phone video of you “making love” onto Facebook/Myspace/Youtube later that evening.

I wanna make love in this club ayy
(in this club ayy , in this club, ayy in this club ayy )
I wanna make love in this club ayy
(in this club ayy , in this club, ayy in this club ayy )

Ayy (repeat 4x)

And then it finally ends.

I hope you all learned a lot about Usher, Young Jeezy and yourself.

By the by, I am currently wearing Usher’s cologne cleverly titled “Usher” because after all, I am trying to make love in this club.

Poor White People and Barack Obama: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want, But If You Try Sometimes, You Get What You Need.”

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released this week showed, to nobody’s surprise, that Barack Obama is having trouble connecting with poor white people, especially in rural counties.  Maybe it is because he is a rich black man from the city, maybe it is because these areas of the nation are notoriously more racist, skeptical of change, and all around more backward than anywhere else.  So one can naturally conclude that an ivy league educated lawyer who is a self-described “skinny black kid with a weird name, from the south side of Chicago” should have no chance of winning over this voting block.  But current financial conditions may give Barack Obama an opportunity to persuade those reluctant to embrace his message. 

After enduring a decade of economic policies that have disproportionately helped the rich while largely ignoring the poor, working class whites might be ready for a populist message that demands legitimate economic change.  These voters may finally look past the culture wars, wedge issues and trumped up attacks on liberalism, which have defined recent elections, because their pocket books are empty, the price of commodities like gas and food are soaring, millions of people are uninsured, banks have dried up credit streams, and the number of people losing their homes is setting records.   But it is going to be up to Obama to articulate a grand economic message that unites disparate groups.

Although many may not like the idea of voting for a black man whose name sounds distinctly Islamic and who has little national experience, they are going to be willing to listen to somebody championing their dire economic conditions, especially since John McCain’s economic policy seems straight from the robber baron 19^th Century.  This is why Obama has spent the first week of the general election campaign focused on the economy.    The big question is, can Barack Obama deliver an effective populist message for greater economic equality that a large section of the alienated public desperately craves?

To do so he should steal a page from the Hillary Clinton campaign.  As the economy soured Hillary reinvented herself, moving from the supremely confident and competent Washington insider to the woman of the people who uniquely understood common working class pain and difficulty.  Obama must do the same.  He has to talk about growing up poor and working on the poverty stricken streets of Chicago.  He must identify with the woman behind the counter at the deli, the truck driver in Kentucky, and the man working three jobs to stay in his home.

An odd fact is that Obama’s best constituency, Afro-Americans, and his worst, poor white people, have the same economic interests and should constantly vote together to demand a more responsive government, and all signs show that these groups are ready to vote democratic, but racism is a deep, deep problem- especially with the less affluent and less educated- and that fact needs to be overcame before these groups march in lock step.  But isn’t overcoming old racial divisions the promise of Obama’s candidacy?  (See the populist narrative and appeal almost writes itself……)

Obama would also be well served to employ the services of Senator John Edwards - the white populist who poor rural voters would probably love to vote for.  Edwards is the champion of the two America’s platform, which was the closest thing this generation has come to Bobby Kennedy’s war on poverty and Edwards would help to legitimize Obama in the eyes of those most skeptical of him. By serving as a midwife, Edwards could help bridge the gaps and traditional boundaries that have kept the economically vulnerable from voting with one voice.

Barack Obama also must emphasize the real savings that his economic policy will provide for a majority of Americans (about $5,000 a year for people making between 45-75 K) as opposed to John McCain’s plan of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.   Republicans will attempt to brand Obama’s policy as a tax increase, but his plan simply allows the controversial Bush tax cuts (which John McCain originally opposed, but now champions) to expire in 2010, which result in a tax increase on people making more than $250,000 a year.  Barack should also force McCain to defend the continuation of tax breaks for the rich while the nation falls into a recession, this could sway voters who are looking for real relief, not a reincarnation of an obviously flawed policy.  Barack should ask the Reagan question, are you better off now than you were 8 years ago?  The answer is no as it has become clear that the trickle down economic theory has not worked for those at the bottom.  It may be time to end the trickle down and turn on the faucet of economic redistribution to achieve a more equitable society.

Since the “Reagan revolution”, poor white people have consistently voted against their economic interests causing a rift between the working class blacks and whites, the middle class and the marginalized poor, rifts that that have been effectively exploited by the right wing. If Obama can make the case that economic policies geared toward the interests of the elite have created stagnate wages, hedge fund speculation and CEO’s golden parachutes, as well as other signs of vast inequalities not in our society seen since the gilded age, he may be able to unite a powerful economically aligned multi-racial voting coalition.

In order to accomplish this feat Obama will have to demonstrate great political skill, but pervasive economic anxiety is real and 2008 could be the year that people vote with their pocketbooks not their ideologies.   If so, then poor white people may get what they want from a candidate they don’t enthusiastically support. If they don’t and support McCain, especially for blatant nihilistic reasons like racism, they can enjoy watching the coffers of the elite continue to grow, their own economic standing fall, and the separation between wealthy and poor continue to expand.

Tim Russert:  The Filet of the Block

As we all witness the continuing erosion of political journalism, the deterioration in the tenor of public discourse, and the news media’s growing aversion to covering real issues that effect our democracy, it is especially sad that the one man, Tim Russert, - whose style, presence and unflinching desire for the truth served as a bulwark against these trends-  has died at the age of 58. 

In an era where Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh extended their blatantly skewed platforms and audiences, Tim Russert’s non-partisan, issues orientated style was unparalleled.  Meet the Press became an essential stop for anybody seeking political office.  The show served the necessary function of informing the American people by forcing those we entrust with the temporary powers of governing to answer straightforward questions, without pander or spin.  It was not the easiest way for politicians, generally used to speaking to adoring crowds or with close advisers who share their worldview, to spend a Sunday morning, but Russert’s credibility and dedication to the issues was universally respected and admired.  For example, John McCain, after an especially brutal cross-examination by Russert one Sunday a few years ago, wryly compared it to the interrogations he endured while a prisoner of war.  He was back on Meet the Press a couple months later.

Yet despite Russert’s hard-nosed style, the fact that he showed no political preference and would relentlessly, but fairly attack any guest endeared him to members of both political parties.  Russert was a master of forcing politicians to face their contradictions not because he wished to embarrass elected officials, but because he wanted to press for clarity so the public would know what lied behind the never ending spin and distortion that has become the standard in American politics.

Tim Russert’s memory should serve as the template for future political journalists because in order for our democracy to remain vital, capable, and able to retain the ability for self- correction, it requires the type of unfettered fair minded reporting enshrined in our constitution.  Russert’s work illustrated these ideals and exemplified the essence of the 1^st Amendment.

God Damn! Can the Midwest Catch a Break?

This spring has done unbelievable damage to the heartland of this nation.  From a wildly active tornado season to recent floods, America’s breadbasket has had the wind knocked out of it by Mother Nature.  Entire towns have been lost, houses have been washed away, crops have been destroyed, and experts say it is only going to get worse.  Des Moines, Iowa- a small capital city, but a city none the less- had to be evacuated June 13^th.  Dozens of people in several states have already died because of the weather. 

What these recent conditions have shown is that America’s infrastructure is in dire need of repair.  I know that Mother Nature is uncontrollable, but more can be done to improve the capacity of levees, the quality of roads and building construction in vulnerable areas must be better, and the equipment used by first responders needs to be updated.   We know that rivers flood, how are we not prepared and how are we allowing people to die because of this inadequate preparation?

Until then we can do nothing but watch as the middle of this nation, our idolized moral compass and our literal food supplier, is taken over by normally placid rivers that have turned vengeful.

Loyal readers of CLP’s cartoons will recognize the enigmatic character of Handsy in many of them. The character is loosely based on a neighbor and friend of CLP and Brew Dawgz. Sadly, he died on Tuesday. The thoughts and prayers from us at What Gloom are with him and his family.

If you’re keeping track of the score it is:

Me: 100

World: 0

Your move World because I just scored with another “Top 5 Most Emailed” on Yahoo.

Girl shoots herself with grandma’s gun at SC store

Is it just me or is the “Top 5” always about death? I think the big twist in the story is the “girl”, which is a term I use for any human of the female persuasion who is either my age or younger or who I think looks my age or younger than me, is 4 years old. This is terrible news. It is not funny that a 4 year old shot herself and died. I’m not going to lie, but it is funny that it was the grandma’s handgun that she carried with her to Sam’s Club.

I am against people carrying concealed weapons like guns. I think that if you want to carry a weapon then you have to be a “master” of that weapon. You can be more accurate than another person with a gun, but a gun is a gun and it works the same for everyone. If a person wanted to carry around a weapon I think it should be more in the realm of a katana. Yes, a samurai sword. I believe any man, woman, child or grandma with a blood lust who has mastered the art of kendo or is just naturally gifted with a sword can carry around a sword. I do not know if this world would be safer or not with everyone carrying around swords, but I believe people would survive a scuffle better if it was sword vs. sword than gun vs. gun. Also it can be something outside of a sword like an axe or flails or even a spear. I am open to suggestion. I sincerely believe there will be a lot of less innocent bystanders getting caught in a battle-axe duel than two Lil’ Wayne fans emptying loads from their Mac-10s on a city block.

Back to the story, the grandma was packing heat and it is cool to pack said heat in a Sam’s Club. After the Virginia Tech shooting and some of the other shootings, the gun nuts (legal term) said that the other students should have had guns so they could defend themselves (instead of eliminating guns altogether from the situation and seeing if these nerds without any decency could take out their fellow students in hand-to-hand). I wonder if that applies to this situation. If the 4 year old had her own gun maybe she could have deflected the bullet she fired from her grandma’s gun with a bullet from her own gun. Sounds like a possible solution.

115-year-old Woman’s Brain in Tip-Top Shape

Alzheimer’s and dementia have no concrete links to inevitability in accordance to aging? Not surprising because apparently me putting deodorant on every morning so I smell nice when I sweat through this 95 degrees of extreme humidity is also allowing me to absorb aluminum through my skin which is what most likely leads to Alzheimer’s. Also did you know that anti-bacterial soap mixed with chlorine makes chloroform? Do you know what is in our drinking water supposedly making it clean? Chlorine. Do you know what you use soap with? WATER! Unless you are washing yourself with bottles of Poland Spring then you may be slowly killing yourself with chloroform as you try to clean yourself. Can you believe this shit!?!

This article points out that 80,000 people in the US alone are 100 years or older. They estimate by 2040, there will be 580,000. I do not know about you, but I am scared. When human beings reach the age of 100 they cease to be referred to as “human”; they become…. Centenarians! AHHH! I do not know what mysteries lay inside the “centenarian” race. Because of my years studying Latin (two in high school) I can deduce two things from the word “centenarian”:

1. Centaur – You can pretty much see and hear the word “centaur” in “centenarian”. Centaurs are wild, aggressive and they like to fight. They are brutal creatures. I mean Caeneus was beat into the earth by centaurs wielding rocks and tree branches. And Caeneus was invulnerable to weapons. I am very vulnerable to weapons and imagine what a pack of centaurs could do if they were properly equipped. Rocks and tree branches? What are they Hezbollah rebels?

2. Narnia – Check out the last 5 letters, “narian”. That spells “Narnia” and centaurs exist in Narnia. So we’re fucked.  

Tomatoes pulled off shelves amid salmonella scare 

I do want to tell you how to live your life and raise your kids: don’t eat fruits or vegetables. People talk about if red meat is bad or if I should eat more fish. Forest from the trees my friend; vegetables are going to kill you. Last year it was spinach, now it is tomatoes. People eating salads might as well have a death wish. It says a lot when eating the chicken nuggets or a boat load of fries is not the scariest thing on a McDonald’s menu.

I think the number of cases of infected will always be way more than we can expect. Not only because it is so wide spread, so many people eat fast food or buy food at Walmart. It comes down to the symptoms, “Most infected people suffer fever, diarrhea and abdominal cramps starting 12 to 72 hours after infection. The illness tends to last four to seven days.” Isn’t that how you feel always after eating McDonald’s or Burger King or Taco Bell. I know that if I even walk past a Taco Bell a little too slowly that I have abdominal cramps and diarrhea for 12 to 72 hours… at least. And a fever? I get a fever from having too much diarrhea and a fever only causes more diarrhea, so it is a never ending vicious cycle.

Smoking hurts mind as well as body: study

1. A Chicago article about French researchers studying British civil servants?

2. “Smoking was associated with mental decline in middle age, as it is with dementia and a host of physical ills later in life, they found.” – Isn’t this redundant? If you are still smoking at middle age with all this information about how it is going to kill you at any second being rammed down your throat and the price to keep smoking is sky-rocketing year to year and it is being banned in cities all over the world then wouldn’t you already qualify as having a “mental decline”?

3. “…people who said they had quit cigarettes were more likely to adopt healthier behaviors, such as drinking less alcohol, being more physically active, and eating more fruits and vegetables…” – Trading cigarettes for fruits and vegetables? You might as well just trade cigs for the needle.

4. “….more than twice as many smokers as non-smokers refused to take the memory test again or were not able to be re-tested, in some cases because they died in the interim.” AHHH!!!!!!!!!

Rep. Kucinich calls for Bush impeachment

What is this 2003? I really hope I didn’t waste my one and only time travel opportunity to go back to 2003 to read an article about Kucinich. I cannot think of a more fruitless waste of time than doing…. wait a second, how about trying to impeach Bush? Yeah, that is an even bigger waste of time! I hate Bush (the band and the President), but the last thing we need is to focus more on him (or the band). What needs to happen is pretend like he never existed (as well as the band). Our congress, the next President Barack Obama, the senate, every human being in the world needs to start working on fixing the wrongs of our current administration. Impeachment is for the history books and I think we have enough TV shows, movies, documentaries, books written by outsiders, books written by insiders, books written by former staff members who have now seen the light and want to profit on that light by writing a “tell all” book, newspapers, cartoons, stencils, novelty pens, clever bumper stickers and angry Starbucks baristas who listen to Rage Against the Machine to ensure the history books get it right that Bush sucked (I’m not Dennis Miller, no need for any verbiage that appears on the SATs; “sucked” works).

I like Kucinich as much as the next man, if that next man is a North East liberal like myself, but if he wants to continue being the shining wood gnome light of the real “left” in the Democratic party then he should be trying to pass a real liberally concerned agenda like strict environmental pollution policies. He should be pushing harsh “miles per gallon” or alternative fuels policies. He should be more concerned about helping the people than hurting one. In all honesty, Bush could probably give a flying fuck about impeachment or his legacy. Let’s get real for a minute (puts on Saul Williams), the dude was/is President for two terms and he is a multi-millionaire. Impeachment? Are we going to “impeach” the $700 million plus that he has? What does he care or why should he care? Impeachment would be a threat if it resulted in death, but as far as I know it doesn’t result in anything than a figurative blow to your ego. Bush doesn’t care. He’s rich! Rich people don’t care about anything. Haven’t people figured that out already? If Bush cared about other human beings then he wouldn’t have done 1/5 of the shit he has done as President.

Kucinich needs to be focusing on two things: getting Obama as President and his hot wife. I mean Kucinich’s own hot wife and not Obama’s. Michelle is pretty good looking herself, but I was referring to Kucinich’s red-headed vixen, Elizabeth, that the debates showed a lot of. The secret has been out of the bag for a little while that he has a hottie at home, he needs to watch out. I do not know if he has noticed, but none of the other Keebler elves have hot wives in the commercials sitting by their side cheering them on as they run one of the most delusional Presidential campaigns… for the second time.