ClearTheRail

Moving

I am finally switching this site over to my own hosting service. Please forgive me if it disappears for a short while or links to another site. It will be back though, and will still be at cleartherail.com

Pranks

Two of my friends pulled a great prank on me today. Apparently they were talking on AIM before I logged on and for some reason were talking in Morse code. Why anyone would ever intentionally talk in Morse on the net is beyond me, especially when neither of them knew it and both had to use translators. So when I started talking to them they just responded to me entirely in Morse code.
Now normally I would just be like “why the hell are you typing in Morse you ass” but I had literally just installed the new AIM, and they were the only two people on my buddy list. They got me to actually uninstall and reinstall the program, at which point someone else signed on and I figured out the whole thing.

Virgin Brides

Here is a conversation I had today with a certain person who would like to remain nameless:
Her: “Did you know that Jessica Simpson was a virgin when she got married?”
Me: “I didn’t realize that you inspected her hymen on her wedding day.”
Her: “No really she was.”
Me: “How do you know?”
Her: “She said so.”
Me: “Oh then it must be true. No woman ever lied about their sex life before.”
Her: “Even her husband said so. It was on television.”
Me: “Well if it was on MTV it must be true. No famous pop stars ever lied about their virginity on national television *coughBritneySpearscough*.”

Now I am not trying to say that she wasn’t a virgin, just that her saying so on TV doesn’t mean that people should go around treating it as a fact. Even if she was a virgin I'm sure she fooled around a bit. Maybe took it in the poop-chute a few times or something.
All I do know about her is that she should be blowing the executives from Viacom on a daily basis. Granted I don’t listen to pop stations but wasn’t she a one hit wonder before that television show? I only ever heard one song from her, and that was because I worked in electronics at Sam’s Club and the video for it was on the in-store DVD. I could probably name at least 7 Britney Spears songs and 3 or 4 by that Christina Aguilera chick (despite not being a fan of either) so at best this girl was a third rate performing artist. Until the nation discovered that she didn’t know how to tell tuna from chicken, then she became an A-list celebrity with endorsements out the wazoo.
Somehow even her talentless sister gets to be famous now. I heard the song the other day while in the car with the unnamed female mentioned above (you would never catch that crap on my radio) and it may have been the worst thing I have ever heard. I wish my brother would land an MTV show so I could be a star without having anything even remotely resembling talent. Life is so unfair isn’t it?

Paranoia

Here is an email I sent to the nutcase who runs a site called survivalring.org, which is all about being prepared in the event of terrorist activity. The email address (and AOL screen name of the offending paranoid is rafleet@aol.com.

Taken from your homepage:
> Know why they will want to find a LARGER target then just a small town
> website has MORE free downloadable FALLOUT SHELTER PLANS, information, and >standards, then any other site in the world
Obviously from your website you are a paranoid, which would be fine if you were a paranoid who could pass a third grade English Class. How am I supposed to take advice on where nuclear bombs may land from a guy who doesn't know the difference between the word "then" and the word "than". Also nobody cares about the Soviet Strategy for a full scale nuclear war because there is no more USSR. You are simply praying upon people's paranoia to sell them your useless $25 CD. I wouldn't even have a problem with this if you could speak passable English while ripping these people off. I suggest you take the proceeds from the next $25 CD you sell, find a 4th grader who got an A in English, and have him/her edit your writing.

Beer

Yesterday I was enjoying a fine Sam Adams Summer Ale and got to thinking that it might be interesting to document the history of my love for fine beers. The whole love affair began in high school. Back then the drink of choice was Gennessee Cream Ale, strictly for economical reasons. When you work a part time job for $4 an hour you need a beer that doesn’t strain the budget, and this stuff was cheaper than Pepsi. Once we even caught it on sale for $7 per case of 30. We had a hell of a party for $21 that night.
Of course no beer that costs lest than a quarter per can could possibly have a flavor which would not wake you screaming in the middle of the night if you ever drank it in a dream, and Genny was no exception. So as I graduated and moved into higher paying jobs ($7 per hour) while sporadically attending college I slowly moved up the chain, first to Milwaukee’s Best. Granted most Milwaukee beers taste like ass, but this still was a rather optimistic title. Perhaps Milwaukee’s Most Economical would have been a little better. Regardless “The Beast” as we referred to it came in an Ice variety. Ice beers supposedly undergo some special freezing process or something which sounds like a poorly contrived gimmick to me, but this beer was still much more drinkable (and only slightly more expensive) than Genny. Plus it was funny to put the box on your head and run around yelling “I am the Milwaukee beast”. Or at least we found it amusing after we each drank a case.
After The Beast came Natural Light, in bottles of course. Natty was the only beer which cost less than $0.50 per, and actually came in glass. Of course you couldn’t make a beeramid (some of our beer can structures rivaled I. M. Pei’s greatest accomplishments) but you looked rather sophisticated drinking out of a bottle while all the other college students on the block were sipping out of aluminum cans. So even though the Natty cost a little more than The Beast (Ice of course) and didn’t have any discernible difference in taste it was worth the extra 10 cents per unit just for the extra social status that comes with bottles.
Now before I continue I just would like to say that I know many of you out there may have been in the Natty Light phase (or one of the earlier ones) for many years and have no intention of ever advancing. All I can say to you is don’t worry. As long as you don’t mind the fact that you will never have a job which doesn’t require you to wear your name on your blue denim shirt you may lead a long happy life. Also you will enjoy the great freedom that comes along with being able to simply hitch your mobile home to your 1982 Chevy pickup (as soon as you get it off of blocks that is) and move to wherever in the country needs a good laborer.
So anyway after Natty came the Bud Light phase. This seems to be the last phase that 90% of Americans reach. It is the Bermuda Triangle of beer exploration. There are two reasons for this. The first is that after a few years of Genny, Natty, and The Beast Bug Light tastes like heaven. Of course after progressing through the next few phases of beer exploration I would rather drink my own urine than Bud Light, but back to reason number two. The second reason that Bud Light is so popular is marketing. I don’t think I've ever seen more commercials for anything in my life than I have for Bud Light. And unlike most other beer commercials which pretty much just use models in swimsuits Budweiser actually uses some very clever marketing. Commercials like The Budweiser Frogs (then other various reptiles and amphibians), the wazzup guys, the Bud Bowl, and commercials of that sort raise the bar in advertising far beyond the normal “drink our beer and hot chicks will want you” commercial that every other big brewery uses.
During the Bud Light phase I began to try some other things. J.W. Dundee’s Honey Brown Lager was a tasty diversion from the norm, but you could only drink a few at a time before it was just too sweet for you. I remember once being at a local dinner theater where we knew the waitress, who would serve us (of course we were all 19 then) and they had Honey Brown on tap for $1 per glass. The glass wasn’t very good, but $14 or so later I was near vomiting, not from the alcohol but from the sweetness. I would also drink the occasional Pete’s Wicked Ale, Strawberry Blonde, or Labbatts, all of which tasted better than any of the big brewery stuff I was becoming used to.
Then came perhaps the defining event in the evolution of my love for beer. My roommate turned 20, but since the National Guard had somehow made a mistake on his military ID saying he was born a year earlier than he really was I was now able to get any sort of beer I wanted, whenever I wanted. When you are underage and don’t have any older brothers or girlfriends who are 21 you are at the mercy of fate when it comes to which beer you might end up drinking on any given night, and fate seemed to be very biased towards Bud Light. Now I was free to explore the known beer world.
At some point I became aware of the excellent microbrews which are being made in every city in America. And then of course I found the king of them all, the best of all microbrews, Sam Adams. Sam Adams, for those poor souls still in the Bud Light phase or below, is made by the Boston Beer company, which is the largest microbrewery in America. Largest microbrewery sounds like somewhat of an oxymoron, but supposedly the big breweries spill more beer than they make in a year according to their founder Jim Koch. Regardless of their size they climbed to the top by making the best line of beers to be found in the world.
I started of with their flagship line, Sam Adams Boston Lager. This is the Sam Adams beer you usually see on tap at any respectable bar. It is (though a great beer) also probably my least favorite of their beers, excepting perhaps the Old Fezziweg Ale which is the only beer of theirs that I don’t like. I really liked the Boston Lager at first but it wasn’t enough to really make me an enthusiast. Then by one day I asked a friend to pick me up some and he accidentally got the Sam Adams Boston Ale (not lager) which turned out to be a mistake on par with leaving the window open and discovering the antibiotic properties of penicillin.
This beer was far better than anything I had ever had before. After that I decided to try every microbrew I could find, including the entire Sam Adams line. I discovered such other great breweries as Sierra Nevada (makers of one of the finest Pale Ales around), Great Lakes Brewery (a Cleveland brewery that doesn’t pasteurize their beers, requiring them to remain refrigerated) and the local Thirsty Dog Brewery. Such brewers all make excellent beers, and there are different ones in every city. In Las Vegas, where I am currently heading, there is even one in the Monte Carlo Casino.
Now I wouldn’t drink anything from one of the big breweries if you paid me. When I see someone drinking Bud Light I almost feel sorry for them. But then I think that they could be drinking Natty Light. And when I see someone who is over 20 years old and is drinking Natty or The Beast I ask them what is causing that squealing noise my car is making. They always know too.

Cockatiels

Earlier this year (in May I think) I found a cockatiel on my doorstep at 1 a.m. Unfortunately for it the weather was 42 degrees and rainy, and since it was a tropical bird the half day it had spent outside proved to be fatal. I took it in when I found it, and attempted to give it food and water. I even bought a cage for it the next day but it died a fewer hours later. I felt bad for the bird but I had done what I could, so my conscience wasn’t perturbed. I am sort of an animal rights person, and by that I mean the WWF type (believes in preserving wild animals and their habitats, fighting extinction, etc.) rather than the PETA type (psychos who give us constructive animal lovers bad names) so I don’t take well to animals dieing of human negligence.
Later I found out from my girlfriend that it belonged to the gay couple who lives above us. I guess they had let it out to roam around their apartment and foolishly decided to leave the house before putting it back in its cage. As soon as they opened the door the bird flew out and ended up half frozen to death on my doorstep later that night. So I was already not very fond of these people before today.
Today these idiots did it again! Their second cockatiel was roaming about the house when one of them decided to open the door to check the weather. Why anyone would need to open the door to do this when there is weather.com is beyond me. Anyway the cockatiel bolted (surprise, that is what animals do) and is now out in the trees somewhere. Fortunately cockatiels are somewhat cold hardy and there are ample ponds in the area for water, so hopefully the weather will remain in the 50s and 60s at night like it has lately, giving it a few days to return. I do know that if I find the bird I am not giving it back to its owners. I may keep it or may just give it to a pet store (who will always be happy to receive a $200 bird) so that it ends up in the hands of some slightly less idiotic owners. I really wanted to go beat the one responsible with a golf club but I just got new irons and as my girlfriend pointed out it might qualify as a hate crime since they are gay. But if I hear of another bird being lost up there gay or not they are going to get a Ping G2 High Loft 3 iron in the temple.

Abolitionism

I took a road trip this weekend with my girlfriend to Atlantic City and Philadelphia. We went to good old A.C. to stay at the Borgata (always nice to stay at a 5 star hotel) and see Dave Chappelle live. I have to say that Dave Chappelle may be the funniest comedian ever. His material was great, though it was unfortunately cut short by hecklers. Fortunately his responses to the idiots in the audience were just as funny as some of his written material, so it wasn’t a total loss. He probably would have gone on a lot longer if not for the hecklers, but oh well.
After the Borgata we headed on to Philadelphia for the Independence Day festivities. This turned out to be the ideal place to be on the 4th of July weekend. I guess given that the events being celebrated occurred there it isn’t too surprising. We did all of the touristy things that you have to do in Philly, like see the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and eat a cheese steak. Unfortunately I made the mistake of deciding that I wanted my steak from Gino’s, which is one of the top 2 places in Philly. I guess this place is a tourist trap, and why I don’t know because the food was awful. If you are ever in town eat at Tony Luke’s and leave those places alone.
One highlight of the trip was the African American protest outside of the Independence Mall. They had such witty slogans “Your Whitehouse is our out house” and “Your liberty bell is our slavery hell”. Apparently these people were unaware that slavery is now illegal in America. Don’t need to protest it any more fellas, it is gone. They were from the Coalition for Avenging the Ancestors, which I find funny because the ancestors are all dead and no amount of senseless protesting will avenge what they had to suffer through. The local newspaper said that their protests this year were enraged by the recent discovery of a ninth slave in the George Washington household. As if having 9 is so much worse than having 8. And even if he had 872 what does any of that have to do with the Whitehouse? GW never lived there.
I was standing at the ready to run at the first sign of any race related violence but fortunately none ever broke out. Most people seemed to walk by the dashiki clad protesters with little thought. There were of course some people muttering racist remarks, but to me these were uncalled for. These people were, in my humble opinion, just plain stupid. Of course I think that protesting is always fairly stupid, just because it doesn’t work. One well written letter to the editor in the New York Times will do a lot more to advance any cause than 800 defuses with corny clichés on cheap signs. I can't remember the last time any war was averted because a bunch of hippies wrote generic slogans on poster board and walked around in a public area. The only memorable protests seem to be ones like Kent State and Tiananmen Square, and those only because they ended in tragedy.
That has been the only benefit to America that I can think of from this latest war with Iraq. Before it happened we got a few solid months of getting to see people do the dumbest things to voice their protest over the war. Everything from people going on hunger strikes to women lying around naked in parks. And some of the pictures I saw of those women could probably be used as very slow working weapons of mass destruction too. Simply show them to the Iraqi men, who would then be unable to work because they woke up in the middle of the night screaming in horror at the nightmares of fat middle aged soccer moms in their birthday suits. A few short years of showing these pictures to Iraqi men on a daily basis and the nation’s birth rate and productivity will have sunk to record lows. Many of the men will have gouged their eyes out as well, and since I doubt that females get much in the way of education over there nobody will be available to do all of the oil drilling and such. So I guess maybe I am wrong about the whole protesting thing, maybe it is useful. Not for preventing wars, but for winning them.

4th of July

I had the misfortune of going to not one, but two fireworks displays this year. I was sitting there watching the second yesterday night when it dawned at me that the whole tradition is incredibly stupid. You take these rockets, worth hundreds of dollars each and blow them up repeatedly. Sure some displays have bigger and louder fireworks than others, but in the end they all amount to doing the same thing over and over. You launch a couple fireworks, they explode, wait a couple seconds, and do it again. The crowd ooohs and aaaahs, as if each firecracker wasn’t perfectly identical to the 352 previous ones, not to mention the ones they saw the past year, and every year before that since they were a child. There are really only 4 or 5 basic types, each in different colors, exploding at different heights, but from the reactions of the viewers (and I don’t mean just the children either, from them it would be acceptable) you would think each one was some new and rare find.
I know these displays are usually set to music (invariably the 1812 overture) but I’ll be damned if I have ever once listened to the station that plays the music along with the fireworks (and I have listened a few times) and found any correlation between the two. If they shot them off completely at random I doubt anyone could tell the difference. To me the whole thing would be better if the guys running the show just said “fuck the music” and lit them all off at once, resulting in some sort of mushroom cloud and perhaps a downed 747.
It just seems to me that in a nation with rampant crime, an unacceptable poverty level, and 40 million people without health insurance, and an ever inflating budget deficit that we could find a better use than the millions spent on these things every year. I read that in 1998 4th of July fireworks caused an estimated $15.6 million in property damage alone. I don’t see what is so patriotic about taking that much money and blowing it up. I am pretty sure that I would have grown up to be much the same adult that I am today if I didn’t get to see some explosions once a year as a child.
As a general rule I never complain about a problem without proposing a solution. So what should we do with the money wasted on this? Bumfights! That’s correct, Bumfights. We pay homeless people $10,000 each to fight each other, then videotape it and sell the DVDs, using the proceeds to pay for more. Then by the end you will have eradicated homelessness, and some of the tougher bums might even wind up millionaires, fighting Mike Tyson in Madison Square Garden. So we could entertain the masses just as much as fireworks and end homelessness at the same time. It’s a win-win situation if you ask me.

Jesus and burritos

Heard a rather profound riddle yesterday on the Simpsons of all places. It was:
Could Jesus microwave a burrito that was so hot that He couldn’t eat it?
Wow. I mean doesn’t this logically disprove the existence of an omnipotent being? If He could do anything then He could eat any burrito, no matter how hot. But if that is true then the answer to the question would be no, He could not microwave a burrito too hot for Him to eat. Hence he cannot do anything and is therefore not omnipotent. Not that faith and logic have ever had much influence over each other, but this seems to be a direct clash between the two. I would love any logical refutation to this. Should anyone have one please comment it in here.

Declaration Of War

You know what I just can't get enough of? Those incredibly witty Citi Bank commercials where they tout their identity theft “solutions”. You know the ones I am talking about. There are somewhere between 2 and 197 of these things, I can't really tell because they are all identical. They have a male or female sitting there with their mouth moving, but the voice coming out is from someone of the opposite gender. They are sitting at home talking about all of the stuff they bought with their stolen credit card. How clever! Now excuse me while I go stare at my Drinking Bird toy for 3 hours.
Now I only watch a few shows on television and I see these dumb ass commercials about 72 times a day. This means that either Citi is selectively targeting me by advertising only during World Poker Tour, Jeopardy, and syndicated Seinfeld episodes, or that they are saturating television with these insidious ads. Never one to tolerate people regurgitating the same crap over and over and trying to cram it down my throat (I never realized how similar ad agencies and Hollywood studios are before) I think it is time to do something about them. So I am now declaring the war on Dell advertising officially over (with a resounding victory on my part) and am declaring a new war on Citi and their identity theft solutions garbage.
Actually to be honest I think the first time or two I saw the ad I thought it was ok. Neat gimmick, next. But then times 3-109,875 I began to become a little sick of them. Times 109,876-1,254,698,743 of viewing these commercials had me wishing I could blow up the ad agency responsible for this torture. And then the other day I realized that the ads have one fatal flaw. Who gives a fuck about identity theft? I have had crap bought on stolen credit cards numerous times, and you know how much it cost me? $0. The credit card companies have to pay for this stuff. It’s the law. I think they are allowed to charge you some small amount, like $25 or something, but if they are none of them do. You call them, tell them it was a fraudulent charge, and they erase it. So if some trailer trash runs up my Visa bill who cares? In effect this service is only extra hassle for me, since every time I do buy something out of the ordinary they are going to red flag it, reject the purchase, and call me, wasting my valuable time. All to save themselves money, not me, since they are the ones who were going to end up holding the bill (literally) anyway.
So in effect what they are doing is running a blitzkrieg advertising campaign telling people that if you use their stupid credit cards and buy something unusual you are going to get hassled by good old Citi Bank over it. But have no fear, if someone steals your card and goes on a shopping spree with Citi Bank’s money they will give you a call and let you know about it. I am not sure what would be more annoying, seeing 572 commercials that are all variants of the same annoying concept, or having some dumb ass computer system reject my dumb ass card just because I decided to go buy some dumb ass antiques for the first time in my life and having to deal with some dumb ass 16 year old call center employee on the phone calling me to tell me that they stopped someone from stealing my identity. So for those reasons I am declaring war, and this time I will not settle for simply vanquishing my enemy as I did with the evil minions at Dell. I will rest when Citi is annihilated. Die Citi, die.