odd bits from my family tree

looking through my family tree, i'm a little surprised at some things about the pre-1900s:

• mens' given names don't seem to have evolved a whole lot over the last 500 years (e.g. "John"). womens' names seem more various.
• 3/4 of males born since 1450 have been named "John Hall".
• apparently, you were obligated to have at least a dozen or so babies. (yes, i already know, thank you.)
• if you had a baby who died, you'd make another baby and give them the same name (usually "John Hall").
• if your wife died, you were obligated to marry another woman within a few months, and make more babies named "John Hall".
• ancestry.com seems to think that people born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1600s were born in the USA.
• every male child seems to have been named the exact same name as either a parent, uncle, grandparent, or cousin. (usually "John Hall".)

medical marijuana

medical marijuana

of course i'm opposed to medical marijuana!

why would Anyone want to pay a doctor $150 to write out a piece of paper entitling them to buy some leaves for three times the price they can get them for, otherwise?

i mean, why would paying almost $250 for something you could grow in your garden (or buy for $40) be your first choice? is it, seriously? nah.
i guess house arrest [2nd choice] is a good compromise between freedom [1st choice] and shackles [who the fuck chooses "shackles"?].

i'm also opposed to medical paper towels, medical baseball caps, and medical coffee mugs.

"relevant" advertising

watching tv programming on cable tv, i could just skip past all the commercials.
watching tv shows on tv guide and hulu, the advertising is a bit... more difficult... to dodge. but they both offer li'l boxes to indicate which ads are "relevant" to me.
almost none of them are. my discretionary spending budget is a negative number of dollars, per week.
some of the "tech" ads i might find interesting to watch, but i'm never going to be able to afford to spend $250,000 dollars a month for a phone that can text. (not while i can get a better one that does more for $25 per month.)
and no automobile ad will ever persuade me to spend an amount of money that would feed 3000 people for a year to buy a rolling death trap...
and no "insurance" advertisement could ever convince me that i wasn't fattening obese cats with no discernible benefit to myself...
yet these seem to be the most prevalent... it's interesting, to me, that the least socially desirable things seem to enjoy advertising on internet tv the most...
i know that i (capable-of-thought, incredibly poor guy) am not their target audience. it just makes me sad that the audience really is what they think :(
i'm abnormal :(

$250,000,000 yacht for sale NOW, for ONLY $225,000,000!
is this ad relevant to you?
Chemical Weapon WMDs, available NOW, for a low, low price!
is this ad relevant to you?
a wookee fur trimmer AND a dragon tooth-filer!
is this ad relevant to you?
$250,000,000 yacht for sale NOW, for ONLY $225,000,000!
is this ad relevant to you?

2010 in review

in 2010, i

·    kissed 1986,

·    let children get the better of me, and learned from it,

·    discovered television,

·    gained and lost jobs,

·    sat in the cemetery,

·    drove a car a lot,

·    figured out that i'm done—not by choice,

·    played soccer,

·    climbed a high sheer cliff, and fell off at the top,

·    discovered pop music,

·    got old,

·    got to say "go fuck yourself",

·    became even less human,

·    discovered tomato soup,

·    learned to cook meat (and even touched it),

·    quit,

·    forgot about The Dragon and was conquered by The Beast,

·    threw away apotheosis,

·    threw the football,

·    went to the movies,

·    kissed in a parking lot,

·    faked stupidity,

·    felt emotion,

·    fought bugs,

·    got punched a LOT (punch buggy!),

·    got to say my favorite word, over and over,

·    got to get some cool (i think) xmas presents,

·    lost a penny—The Penny,

·    smelled the good smell,

·    drank beer,

·    got crazy stoned,

·    ate Chinese- and was introduced to moo shu,

·    got lost,

·    swam,

·    reacquainted old friends,

·    slept in the tent,

·    cleaned,

·    cuddled on the couch,

·    walked hundreds of miles,

·    woke up early,

·    felt fear,

·    rolled cigarettes,

·    went to the mall,

·    was never spectacular,

·    quit carrots,

·    disappointed almost everyone,

·    consolidated two-people-worth of everything, then had to undo it,

·    read on the deck,

·    climbed trees,

·    walked woods,

·    got to wake up rather wonderfully,

·    learned New Bedford,

·    met a movie star, a governor, a football star, and a hero,

·    got hit on by cuties,

·    Hated,

·    ate lentil loaf,

·    drank martinis,

·    had eggs Florentine,

·    didn't make it to the party,

·    spent days-long periods without ever communicating with another person,

·    read the news,

·    took responsibility,

·    was completely irresponsible

...

the most important part

it's not nice, when i don't have the slightest idea what's going on in the most important parts of my life. when i can't tell whether i'm stepping over a sidewalk crack or on the edge of a vast crevasse with my death spelled out in the bottomlessness.
chocolate cake... i love chocolate cake
embracing the ignorance, i close my eyes and bury my head in the sand. and fucking Hate it.

driving cars

i occasionally get to drive a car.
what is it in people's minds that makes them... far less polite... when driving cars?
i watched today, stopped in my mom's car, at an intersection with a stoplight, while a couple of dozen cars drove through, all in nice line, ignoring the person stopped in a car, several cars in front of mine, with his left turn signal on. eventually, of course, the stoplight turned red again, traffic briefly stopped, and the car in the front of the line i was in moved off to the left. it didn't Startle me, but i thought it was interesting.
the car behind that one (the one that got to turn, after the light had changed back to red), also had a left-turn signal on, and i got to watch while several dozen more cars flowed through the intersection, preventing his left turn.
i wasn't anxious, and i'm perfectly happy, while seated in the relative comfort of a car, listening to music, smoking a cigarette, and drinking a coffee, to sit there with my foot on the clutch for hours, i guess. fuck, anything beats standing at an open bus stop in the rain when it's 20* F. so, whatever.
but:
FIRST! what possesses people to NOT let that guy, who clearly wants to turn his car and cross through the intersection to the left, do so? can they not spare the 1 1/2 seconds?
SECOND! why doesn't that guy, sitting in that car, intent on turning his car left, just fucking GO once that light turns green? is is his reaction time really so much slower that he can't risk the incident? people, stopped at lights, can't possibly be THAT self-obsessed that they'd really deliberately accelerate quickly to prevent him. i suppose. unless they're typical fat, self-obsessed, anti-human, thoughtless americans, i mean. and how many of those could there possibly be?
THIRD! when _i_ drive a car, that turn signal has a purpose. it means i intend to move the car in that direction. it doesn't mean, "may i please move this car in this direction". it means i am going to move the car in that direction. if yours is there, it is going to feel the bump.

ishit

i like to read tech and gadget sites and reviews and news.
i have no interest, at all, in ipod, iphone, or ipad reviews, gadgets, accessories, or news.
so i must disregard about half of all that i see on any of those sites.

How To Lose Weight Without Changing Your Eating Habits

this will work for you, if you're a Fat American:
When you decide you need the quarter-pounder, fries and a coke, don't sit on your ass in the car and order it through a window. Park the car and walk the 100 feet to a counter inside. yeah, i know it smells bad in there, but that's the smell of the food you're planning to eat.
Better yet, as there's a fast food joint approximately every mile and a half, in the U.S., it's not unrealistic to consider walking that distance rather than driving your car at all.
just an idea.