Archive for the ‘Just kind of babbling’ Category

This story comes courtesy of one of my co-workers, Dav. I know it looks like a name from Invader Zim, but it’s pronounced “Dave”.

One of the things that me and Dav have in common is our ethnicity. Both of us are non-practicing Jews. Being Jewish comes with some advantages that gentiles don’t understand. One is a to have practically a supernatural affinity for the entertainment industry and money management. Another is the built in camouflage/amusement factor.

Like any other minority in the country, there are people that don’t like Jews. But unlike many other minorities, Jews are not color coded. If someone starts insulting Blacks in front of a black man, he is starting a fight. But if someone starts insulting Jews in front of me, they probably don’t realize I’m Jewish and are about to be embarrassed. Which is, of course, highly amusing.

Dav got to meet his girlfriend’s extended family during a big Easter Dinner last year. His girlfriend came from a large family of Eastern European immigrants. He hit it off and was fairly pleased that he seemed to be making a good impression with them. The grandmother served them lamb, which she explained was the traditional Easter meal for people from Bulgaria.

“We always have lamb for Easter. It’s the only time we can afford it. It’s not like we’re Jews.”

Dav looked uncomfortable for a moment and his girlfriend quickly intervened.

“Grandma, Dav is Jewish.”

Grandma quickly tried to make amends.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! I didn’t think to look at his nose!”

Now every time he sees her family he complains about how long the meetings with the Elders of Zion take and most of them seriously have no idea if he’s joking or not.

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Today someone I work with showed me a link saying, ed viagra “Some reserve PSYOP officer says that you made PSYOP look bad, allergist and that you are an urban myth.”

This was great news, as I had been wondering what I was going to write about for my weekly update. Perfect, I now have a target.

So I forwarded the link to my home account, and got all ready to mock him on the internet. I was gonna make up new unit heraldry for him. (The 11th Battalion Fightin’ Hillbillies, and I was even going to add the latin motto “Vos fuimus pulchellus oris, puer”.)

So I got all worked up and I get home and look at the site. It’s an explanation of how PSYOP works written by a man called PSYOP Cop, who’s had some experience doing it in Iraq. It’s a pretty decent one too. So if you’re curious about that sort of thing, look here. Actually the site it’s on, OPFOR is worth looking at if you are interested in military matters at all.

It turns out the negative parts were just in the comments section. One reader thought that I make PSYOP look bad. To him, I repeat the same thing I said to the last guy who accused me of that: the military jokes on my site do less to harm PSYOP’s reputation that the one’s who possess commissions. (But I’m doing it here because I’m too lazy to log in there to do it, and beside he wrote it around six months ago.)

Another poster responded to him think that I do not exist and that no one has ever met me. This was a huge shock to my friends, family, and co-workers, who now want to know who the hell they have been talking to for the past several years. I personally never claim someone doesn’t exist without doing a Google search on them, just in case, I dunno, they have a webpage or a blog or something.

So dammit, once again the world thwarts me in my quest to be a righteously indignant smart-ass.

Some people may point out that I still acted like one. To them I say shut-up, nobody likes a smart-ass. Except for when I do it.

I’m gonna sulk, and maybe be mean to some fan-fic writers.

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So a few years ago I saw Terminator 3.  To say that I thought it was a bad movie would be a mild understatement.  It was a train wreck with opening credits and a soundtrack.  It’s so bad that I actually enjoy the other movies less, ambulance knowing that part 3 exists.

But next month there’s going to be a TV show, anesthetist and I’m kind of excited about it.  I mean sure it’s on FOX which means that they’ll kill it at the first sign that it looks decent, but they lined up a good cast and the previews make it seem pretty interesting.

On a similar note, it appears that there will soon be a new Star Wars live action show.  And despite the fact that each of the three last Star Wars movies made T3 look like Shakespeare, I’m still looking forward to that too.

I am positive that I am not alone in this phenomenon.  Nerds have become the equivalent of those housewives you used to see on Jerry Springer.  The ones who, despite years of abuse, keep going back to the same violent men because, “This time he promises he won’t hit me any more.”

Movie Viewer : Oh my god! That movie was terrible! What the hell happened to it George?

Mr. Lucas: (Gives a vicious glare)Yeah.  What happened to it?

Nerd Audience: It fell.  Down the stairs.  Twice.

Mr. Lucas: That’s what I thought….now get back in the kitchen and fry me up a pork chop you geeks!

Now I have a mental picture of a trailer park filled with a collection of white-trash nerds…and which I have now passed on to you.  Your brain probably now feels about as clean as Lindsey Lohan’s bicycle seat.  Pleasant dreams.

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Don’t you hate it when people become reasonable just when you have come up with an awesome way of dealing with them?

I have an example. My wife recently went to visit the doctor. While doing the whole checkup thing, he gave her a brief thirty second lecture on getting more exercise and eating better. Pretty much what happens with most people when they visit a doctor.

Well it turns out that he didn‘t think that this was part of the regular doctor visit. He thought that the brief lecture on a healthy lifestyle was far above and beyond normal doctor behavior. So much so, that he charged extra for it.

I’ll repeat that real fast in case it didn’t sink in properly.

He charged my wife extra, on top of what she paid for a checkup, because he gave a brief lecture on healthy lifestyle.

He felt that this exceptional service was worth forty-five dollars. I know doctor’s services are valuable, but that’s more than a dollar a second. It’s not like my wife asked “Could you throw in an extra lecture for me this time?”

We were a bit surprised to receive a second bill for what we believed to be a normal doctors visit. My wife called the office to complain, and I wrote a letter.

Dear My Wife’s Doctor,

I understand that you charged us an extra $45 dollars for the brief discussion of the importance of nutrition and exercise. Even though every single doctor in the U.S. gives that speech at every visit, you saw fit to charge an extra fee for it.
Well fair enough, you do deserve to be compensated for your time and effort. However I have a suggestion. In the future, maybe, just maybe, if you stop trying to attach extra fees to the bill in the hope that people will pay them without question; you will probably get more return patients. With a steady flow of return patients you will have more regular income and will not need to rely upon cheap tricks with your billing department to make ends meet.

Enclosed you will find my bill for “Business Advice” set at the very reasonable rate of $90 dollars. Please pay at your earliest convenience.

But no, before I could send the letter, the doctor’s office went and apologized and canceled the bill.

Inconsiderate bastards.

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So I’ve had hideous writers block for the past week or so. I keep starting posts, and then abandoning them. I got almost all the way through one, only to conclude that it wasn’t very good. One of the contributing factors was getting Team Fortress 2.

For those of you who are into video games but unfamiliar wit this one, TF2 is a great online competitive FPS, with a retro cartoony style and a warped sense of humor. For everyone who isn’t into computer games, I didn’t finish a post because I was busy trying to nerd myself to death.

So the last post I made, got over 500 people reading Shadowgirls. This is great for two reasons.
One: I got a whole bunch of people looking at my friend’s comic.
Two: There are at least five hundred people on the internet that will do things when I tell them too.

This has some definite potential. Now I just need to find a way to convert this newfound power into a big pile of money, free video games, and naked women.

On another note, I’m kind of wondering what to do for posts on here. I’ve been out of the Army nearly as long as I was in for, and eventually the well of stories is going to run dry.

I’d write funny stories about the video game industry, but there are two problems. The first is that the video game industry is not nearly as interesting as you might suspect. Plus it has the added disadvantage that I currently work in that industry, and wish to continue to do so. Some officer I used to work for getting pissy over my site is funny. Some guy who can actually fire me getting pissy is significantly less funny.

And since I’ve been stuck for a while does anyone have any other subjects they would like me to write about?

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