After reading Rory’s recent “where the effing hell has Rory been” post, I realized that I’ve disappeared in much the same way, although my reasons weren’t nearly as interesting.  Then my company decided to send me to New York at 6:30 in the effin’ morning.  They should know better.  Having missed a flight for the first time in my life (I tried, I really tried), I find myself sitting at the airport wondering what to do as I wait for my now 9:30 flight.  So I pull up a few blogs.  Then I find Rory’s post, then I realize, the masses want to know where the hell Cowboy is and what’s been going on.  This forced me to think about why I haven’t been posting.  So here goes:

• Left Minnesota, went back to my old job in effin’ Kansas.  Woohoo!  Honestly, the job isn’t all that bad, but it’s a little like trying to wear that shirt you had when you were a freshman in high school, it doesn’t quite fit anymore.  Close, but not quite.  You’ve grown, the shirt didn’t.  I’ll endure the awkwardness of wearing a shirt that doesn’t fit for a while, but I’m gonna have to go shopping eventually.  Anyway, moving across three states tends to take a bit of your time.
• Obama was elected.  While this may not directly affect me, I realized that recently the vast majority of my posts has revolved around Evilbush and his personal war that has cost us thousands of American lives needlessly (and far more Iraqi lives).  My main beef with McCain was his support of said needless war.  Obama wants to withdraw (albeit not soon enough), so I don’t have as much to bitch about now.  I’m just counting down to Bush’s last day.  The electoral college still bugs me, but since Obama won despite the skewed electoral college results, I’ll leave it alone.  Give me about another four years and I’ll be all over it again. 
• Wife and kids are a bit demanding on one’s time.  This hasn’t been as much of an issue recently, since I’ve been living the bachelor life in Minnesota.  On a side note, the bachelor life is overrated.  I missed my kids terribly, and they missed me as well. We’ve spent a lot of time together.  It’s good.  My wife is there too.  She demands a lot of time, because apparently not having a job consumes a lot of her time.  She needs me to do a lot of the housework she doesn’t have time for in her daily regimen of Oprah, Doctor Phil, QVC, The Food Network, and teaching the kids how all science is wrong. 

Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell.  Last time I was in New York I decided to make some changes in my life.  I’m still getting around to it, but the effect the town has on me is interesting.  We’ll see how it goes this time. 

Oh, and one last thing.  I ran across a blog that claimed mentioning a certain name seriously boosted the hit count.  In the interest of seeing if that’s true, I’m going to try it myself.  Here goes:

Sydney Brooke Simpson

Let the hits roll!

I should’ve stuck with music.

66 posts of shit: gone.  Today, I’ve made the Internet a better place.

When I was 14, I met a girl. I know, you’re already thinking “you were 14, that was just hormones”, but I had several girlfriends back then. There was something different about her. It only lasted a couple of months, but when she broke up with me it messed me up for years. It’s possible I never really completely got over that one. Even now, after a span of time measured in decades, I still think about her. Even now, when she’s got children who are as old as we were when we met, I still think about her. She was a Virgo.

I try very hard to dismiss all of this astrology crap, but I’ve noticed a pattern evolving in my life. For the record my astrological sign is Libra. It’s hard sometimes not to see something to it, because most people I’ve met who are also Libras tend to be a bit like me. And all of the women who have seriously messed me up since age 14 were Virgos. All of them. No exceptions. Rebecca in college, devastated me my freshman year: Virgo. Anita, possibly the most beautiful girl I’ve ever dated, over it in a couple of days: not a Virgo. Kate: Virgo. Michelle: Virgo. And then there’s last night. We’ll come back to that. Coincidence? Maybe. Or maybe there’s something to it after all.

Let’s be honest, It’s absurdly illogical to think that the position of planets and stars in the sky has some kind of bearing on how my day will go today. Nearly as illogical as belief in this dude sitting somewhere “up there” watching over the day to day activities of each and every person on the planet. I’m not saying either are impossible, I’ve learned that nothing is impossible. However, it doesn’t seem very likely, does it? However, it’s less absurd to think that the season you were born in might have some effect on your personality. Still kind of silly, but slightly more plausible.

Superstition is everywhere. I’m in New York this week, and I just noticed not five minutes ago, the hotel I’m in has no 13th floor. I thought stories like that were a joke, but I’m quite serious. In the elevator there’s a button for 12 and a button for 14. They’re right next to each other. Coincidence? Maybe. So I asked the man at the counter “why is there no 13th floor?” His answer, after a slight grimace, was to say “the builders considered it unlucky. A lot of buildings here are like that.” Uh huh.

So back to the title of the post. The short answer is drink an absurd amount of alcohol in front of people you work with, yell at the top of your lungs until you’re hoarse, and do a lot of air guitar. It’s happened before, and it very well will probably happen again. I have a self-destructive streak wide enough to be used as an overpass. If you put the gun in my hand, I’ll probably pull the trigger. If you put a beer in front of me, I’ll probably drink it, even if I’ve already had too much. And yes, that happened (the last part about the beer, that is).

I’ve gotten comments from many people today along the lines of “I heard you had a lot of fun last night”. I did, I suppose, but that’s not really the reputation I should be shooting for. Being a borderline alcoholic doesn’t help one climb the corporate ladder. It’s a little disturbing just how fast the news of my drunken escapades made the rounds at work, even here in New York where many of the fellow employees have no idea who the hell I am. Needless to say, productivity was down today.

Virgos. What the hell is it with Virgos? Virgos Virgos Virgos! Why am I drawn to a subset of people who inevitably destroy my soul? They don’t mean to, I know that, but they do it all the same. I’m not going to go into any details about what happened for various reasons, but I will say that A) nothing (very) inappropriate happened and B) she managed to get herself stuck in my head. When a Virgo does that, it can take a long time for me to get them unstuck. That’s the part that sucks, because even though I’m not doing anything wrong, it feels like I am. Guilt. My mother’s gift to me.

One thing I can say in favor of my maturity, is that despite having the opportunity to get hammered again, I refrained and drank water tonight. Maybe it’s not self-restraint as much as it is fear, since I seem to have done some rather serious damage to my digestive system yesterday. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into on of those go-see-the-doctor-and-get-some-bad-news deals. Again, withholding the details, but this is mainly because they’re kind of gross and I really think you would wish I hadn’t told you if I actually did. I’m doing you a favor, you may begin thanking me …….. now.

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Restored Comments

314159 said:
First, no I’m not jealous. Yes, Virgos are alluring. Especially this one… Maybe I’m a little jealous.. Her spirit is intoxicating. It pulls you and wraps your very existence with it’s caring and warmth. If she were a star, you would be blinded by her radiance. If you can’t tell, I would fall for her in a heart beat if I haven’t already. You lucky bastard.
Ok, I am seriously jealous!!!

Dude, Hope you relieved some stress in NY.

But, hands off Cowboy. I’ll let you have Tricia Helfer and Grace Park if you do.

The Cowboy said:
Actually no. I’ve created more stress for myself. That’s what I do.
Also, that’s exactly why I withheld details. There’s nothing to be jealous of. Don’t jump to any conclusions here because they’ll be wrong. Nothing like that happened, at least, I don’t think it did, but the details of the evening are a but fuzzy…

With my luck Tricia Helfer and Grace Park would both be Virgos.

– Celes – said:
Virgos, huh? Well, for me it’s been Geminis- with very little variation. Don’t know why…

Astrological thing aside, it does make sense that one falls for the same types over and over. And we inadvertently make the same blunders over and over without the least bit of control.

I don’t know that I can give you any advice for unsticking, but I can empathize, Taco. Hang in there.

I suppose it’s technically not Christmas anymore, but what the hey: Merry Effin Christmas. 

Betsy Aoki brought to my attention the fact that a new version of XNA game studio 2.0 is out.  I thought “Kick @$$!” and immediately downloaded it.  It installed great, I got the starter kit, and it blew chunks.  I hate this damn computer.  I’ve apparently got the screwiest video card on the planet (Radeon 9250 if any of you would like to avoid it).  You see, the plan was to throw together a little “Santanator” game similar to the old Duke Nukem 1 that would allow all of you to participate in my little private war on Scroogery, but frikin’ Dell put a stop to that.  Time to get myself a little birthday/Christmas present and buy a decent computer.  I’m thinking Dual Core/Big Ass Video Card with 400 billion gigs of ram, you know, standard development machine.  I’ll let you know how that works out.  I can tell you this much… no more Dells.  I’m going back to the Frankenstein. 

On a completly unrelated note, I’ve got the bug to write again, but I’m having trouble nailing down a story.  Feel free to post any ideas you’d like to share here, maybe I can use it.  I give credit.

Sleigh bells ring, are you listening,
In the lane, snow is glistening
A beautiful sight,
We’re happy tonight.
Bitchin’ about how much we hate Christmas!

What? That’s not how it goes? The hell you say!

I intended to imbed Joe Pesci’s “Take your love and shove it up your big fat ass” as the theme song for this post, but I couldn’t find a stream of it. Google it, you’ll find it, eventually. It pretty much sums up how I’m feeling about Christmas (and other things) right about now.

What the hell happened to Christmas? It’s been over-commercialized, defined as some date with no background that’s been defined to mean “peace on earth, happiness” and all that crap, and everybody you see says “Bah Humbug.” We’ve all turned into Scrooges. The “Christmas Spirit” is at an all time low.

What the fuck, people?

Let’s straighten a few things out.

1. I’m not Christian, so the “real” meaning of Christmas is more or less pointless to me. An earth spirit was born 2000 years ago, supposedly on December 25th, told everybody to be good to each other, then got nailed to a tree for it. Very sad. Let’s move on, bible-thumping soon-to-be-ex-wife notwithstanding.

2. The over-commercialization of Christmas is, I believe where the majority of the ill feelings towards Christmas comes from. Black Friday? What are we shopping for? We fight monstrous crowds trying to find the “perfect” gift, and increase our respective stress levels by enough per capita to power several starving third world countries. Feeling Jolly yet?

3. No matter how many times and in how many forms we cram “A Christmas Carol” down your gullet, you people just don’t seem to get it. All I hear is “I hate Christmas. Bah Fucking Humbug.”

4. I’ve got as much reason to hate Christmas this year as anybody. I won’t go into details, but it involves death, shattered home life, and various mental instabilities all hitting at once. Figures it be fucking Christmas.

I feel like Clark Fucking Griswold.

Where do you think you’re going? Nobody’s leaving. Nobody’s walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We’re all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We’re gonna press on, and we’re gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he’s gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.

Jesus Christ, I am Clark Fucking Griswold!

When I was a kid, Christmas was a good thing. I’m sure my parents practically killed themselves trying to make it that way, but dammit I WANT MY CHRISTMAS BACK!.

That’s it. I’ve had it. Say hello to Santa’s big-ass helper.

I AM THE SANTANATOR!

That’s right. You worms better get Jolly or else. I’d better start hearing some fucking “Merry Christmas” and I’d better fucking believe it, or I’ll shove your “Bah Humbug” so far down your god damned throat, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come will have to bring a fucking scalpel.

This is you last warning, worms! Get Jolly or Get Your Ass Kicked!

Santanator out.

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Restored comments:

Celes said:

Yeah, I kind of felt this way this holiday season. I understand there are lots of negative things that have come about with this holiday- but if you have any control over your own life, why not try to make the best of it? Shit happens no matter what time of the year it is. Eat some cookies and try to get over it already. I know it’s over commercialized, but then if you hate that, why not refuse to participate in the commercial aspects you disagree with? Buy and give if you really feel it. If you’re giving out of obligation and guilt, it makes the gift pretty worthless.

The Cowboy said:

Hey, you know me. A rant a day… It’s not even the commercialization of Christmas that annoys me, I tune that out for the most part. I think it bothers other people, then they take it out on me. That annoys me. Then I rant. Then I feel better and yell less. Well, usually. Not this time. Usually I’m pretty effin Jolly. Ho ho ho.

Just for the record this wasn’t in response to any blog post, it was in response to people in my life being pissy, making it harder for me to be so effin Jolly. Sorry if it came off offensively. I have that effect on people.

– CC – said:

Offense? Not I. I wasn’t directing that comment at you, I was directing it at those people who have been pissing you off and me off as well with their bellyaching.

The stresses in my life have made me a little un-centered lately. Today I’m trying to refocus on spirituality. The “Tao” in front of “Cowboy” is for a reason.

A recap for those who don’t want to go digging for this nugget of info in my past posts. Several years ago I joined what I though was a normal everyday church. Actually my wife joined, and talked me into going. Oddly enough I’d been approached by these people twice before, and this little alarm went off in my head. This time it didn’t.

Being in a cult is a very strange experience. Nobody in a cult believes they’re in a cult, even if everybody that knows them can see it. Nobody about to join a cult thinks they’re stupid enough to join one. The flaw in their logic is that the likelihood of you joining a cult has absolutely nothing to do with your intellect. Nothing. Very smart people join cults all the time. The Hale-Bopp comet cult was full of very smart people. Don’t ever think you’re too smart to fall for it. That leads to the Dark Side, my friend. It’s all about emotions.

The other danger of cults is that very few people actually know what a cult is. People who have never been in one tend to get their ideas of what a cult is from TV. I seriously doubt any dramatization of Jim Jones or David Koresh was even remotely accurate. Many people who have been in cults still don’t know what one is. They may or may not be aware of why their head is so screwy, but they may not know what makes that group a cult.

I spent a year after I left my cult convinced I was going to hell. I still believed what they told me, but knew I couldn’t return. I didn’t know why. I guess that little alarm in my head finally went off. A very old and very dear friend of mine finally told me what had happened to me, and how the bastards fucked with my head. Recovery was a slow, painful process, but I managed to drag two more people out with me, one of them my wife. I have to give her credit, I didn’t think she was strong enough to leave. That gives me a final score of -2, or 2 depending on how you look at it. I never dragged anybody in, but I managed to drag a few out. One of the few positive things I can say about the whole crappy mess. I was able to do all of that because I took the time to find out what defines a cult and how they work. I needed to know how that had happened to me. I normally consider myself a relatively intelligent person.

Something odd happened after that. I had lost all desire to go to any church. I went to a few on my wife’s request, but every time it just creeped me out, sort of like somebody trying to get on an airplane after surviving a crash. Eventually I admitted to myself that Christianity held nothing for me anymore. So I started looking.

I found Taoism. In all this time I’ve only scratched the surface of what’s there. In true eastern fashion, it doesn’t fit the western definition of a religion or a philosophy. It’s somewhere in between. A lot of westerners have trouble with that, but it’s part of what attracted me to it. It was also the first “religion” that I found that didn’t condemn all the non-followers as heathen bastards going to hell. It actually validated other beliefs, and talked about how many don’t understand their own religions.

If anybody understood the Christian bible, would there be (if I remember correctly) over 300 denominations of Christianity?

I wouldn’t call myself a true Taoist, but that’s where I look when I need a little spiritual guidance. It fits with my theory of the universe the closest.

One of the more central ideas in Taoism is Wu-Wei. It’s not an easy concept to explain, but nothing in Taoism is. The closest parallel in western thought is “Go with the Flow”. One of my favorite books, The Tao of Winnie-the-Pooh uses Pooh bear to brilliantly explain this concept. It’s Pooh’s uncanny knack for just letting things happen and always ending up on top that shows the idea the best.

In my life I have an example, and it’s very recent. This is kind of surprising because I haven’t been practicing these ideas lately, but I think that I should. It involves going to what I would consider one of my top 5 perfect jobs, and it just sort of happened. My entire life, whenever something bad seemed to be happening, I would let it work itself out, and I always ended up better off than I was before. That’s Wu-Wei. I suppose I’ve always been a kind of Taoist, I just didn’t know it.

I needed to remind myself of that today. I don’t have enough time now to explain why, but it got the job done all the same. Who knows, maybe what I’ve written here will help somebody. Maybe not. It’s all the same.

Anyway, another important part of Taoism is getting proper rest, so I’m going to bed.

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Restored Comments

tao said:

All judgement is immoral and all effort to change somebody is destructive and violent. And that’s what cults and churches have been doing up to now. That’s why Lao Tzu is incomparable, unique, unsurpassed before and after. His vision is the ultimate vision of spontaneity, suchness, nature. If you understand him your life will start moving in a totally different rhythm. You will become a non-interference, WU-WEI. And only when you don’t interfere in another’s life do you respect life that’s what reverence of life is all about.

There was a vote a couple of years ago to allow gay marriage.  I never once heard a really good argument against it, yet it failed.  There’s only so many places you can be on this issue.  Let’s review, shall we?

1. You’re gay, so you’re for it.  Simple enough.

2. You don’t care.  Probably an enlightened heterosexual (or metrasexual) who, like me, is yet to hear an argument against it that doesn’t involve invoking the Christian bible or God.

3. You’re against it.  This is the one that interests me, why would somebody be against this?  The obvious one, and the only one I heard during the debate was “God hates homos”.  Eloquent enough, but what about separation of church and state?  Are we still basing laws on the bible?  While we’re at it let’s throw all the damn heathen Atheists, Hindus, Taoists, and whatnot out of the country.  Being decidedly non-Christian since that whole cult ordeal, I’m going to have to reject that argument.  Plus, I’m a bit more tolerant than that by nature. 

I can understand the Christians feeling that gay marriage is wrong and has no place in their religion.  Don’t allow gay marriages in your church.  See?  You have every right to do that.  Do you really have a right to force tenants from your religion on the rest of the country? 

My problem is, I don’t see why it should be illegal.  If you’ve got a good reason and can state it without using the words “God” or “Bible”, fire away.  It’s kindof like the whole marijuana debate.  Why exactly is it illegal?  What makes it worse than say alcohol?  We seem to have a whole series of “immoral” laws, making illegal things that would only hurt yourself if you were to do them.  The only justification seems to be that it’s immoral, according to some religion or another. 

Here’s what should be illegal, but isn’t:

1. Six hour miniseries with no denouement.  What the hell, Tin Man?  I haven’t seen anything end so abruptly since Rosemary’s baby.

2. Driver’s licenses for idiots.  I know you heard there’s going to be ice, but the weatherman was wrong.  There’s no ice on the road, so you don’t need to drive really really really slow in preparation.  I need to get to work today, dammit!

3. Hillary Clinton for president.  I have no problem with a woman president, just her.  We’ve had enough Bushes and Clintons.  How about Mary Carey?  Just imagine what she could do for foreign policy!

4. $3/gal. for gas.  What the hell?  What…. the…. hell?

5. Spell checkers that don’t know the word “dammit”.  Dammit!

6. My continual rants.  Who really wants to hear this crap?  Peace out!

Okay, I’m apparently not very good at satire.  My last post contained a bit of satire combined with a bit of truth.  Here’s how to sort them out:

1. Please don’t send me your twenties.  It was a satire on Internet scams inspired by Rory’s post.  I didn’t post a mailing address on purpose (duh!).  If you ask me for one I will first laugh, then, as I slowly realize that you’re not joking, I will begin to cry softly.  When my wife asks me why I’m crying, I’ll have to reply “The world has gone insane.   I’m going to build it a little house to keep it safe.”  Then I’ll build a small shack inside out, and quietly stand guard “outside” to make sure none of the patients escape.

2. The dollar bill didn’t really shrink.  It wasn’t even my dollar bill.  I shrank the picture myself with Paint.NET.  It’s a great program, and it’s free.  Download it, then donate to the cause.  However, it was meant to point out that during the last administration we’ve A) gone to two wars from which we “can’t” get out. B) Gotten way too many of our young men and women killed for a war that never had anything to do with 9/11.  C) Watched oil companies make record profits.  D) Watched our budgets shrink as gas prices have tripled, with a ripple effect to almost everything else.  The dollar does not go nearly as far as it used to even eight years ago.  I’m not trying to lay out a conspiracy theory here, I’m pointing out that our government has made poor choices, refused to admit that they were poor choices, and refused to try to fix the messes that they’ve created.  We’ve lost nearly 4,000 soldiers in Iraq.  Are we safer because of that?

3. I really do think Henry Rollins would be a good president.  Better than anybody else currently running.  I really am tired of the Bushes and the Clintons.  I really do think that we won’t find a good candidate in Washington D.C.  Douglas Adams once said something to the effect that anybody who wants to be a politician is by their very nature the worst choice for a political leader.  I think he’s right.  Is Henry the answer?  Maybe, maybe not, but either way we need a change.

4. The digg this links were because of the Henry Rollins content.  I tried clicking on them myself and couldn’t get it to work.  I don’t think it’s the plugin’s fault.  I tried doing it through the digg site and it didn’t work either.  Ah well, I didn’t really think the Rollins for President movement was going to take off anyway, but it was fun to try.

5. Yes, the inside out house was from Douglas Adams as well.

Rory, I hope I’m trustworthy again.  I’ve learned my lesson.

Everybody else: Satire is BAD BAD BAD!

If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got six hours of Tin Man to veg out to.

I couldn’t leave it alone. I found this and had to put it up. This is a letter from Henry to Ann Coulter. Every reason I want this man for our next president is summed up right here. After watching this, you too will be unable to deny that we could have no better president.

I’m sending the same letter. Booyah!