Espionage Enterprises

Warning! Rant ahead.

Let me first start by saying I have nothing specifically against disabled people of any kind. My concern comes in with the Handicapped Tags for cars and parking lots. In my humble opinion these would be best suited for a disabled person who has someone driving them around and not actually themselves being the driver. I have had a theory for years that if there is a disability that I need to be aware of as a fellow driver it stands to reason that maybe that person should not be driving. I mean, if it’s important enough to have it all over the car… Maybe the driver who is not physically or mentally impaired to the degree that it’s important for nearby cars to know about it could park close to the front of the store, etc and everyone’s happy.

So far, even this is not really much for me to be upset about. What I AM upset about is the fact that over the 15+ years that I have been driving I have noticed a disproportionately large percentage of drivers that PISS ME OFF that also happened to have the blue tag on their rear view mirrors. And believe me, I examined them to make certain it wasn’t some random other type of tag.

Example: Today as I drove to work two *separate* drivers at two different parts of the highway were driving SLOWER THAN ANY OTHER DRIVER AND DOING SO IN THE FAR LEFT LANE. Do they not see the long snakelike trail of cars going around them? Maybe they’re blind and that’s the disability in question. That’s why there is Braille on the drive up ATM keypads!? By the way, I used to tell people my theory about that, too. No one (except me) thought it was funny.

To all of you shitty drivers out there: In the words of the great Dr. Dre, “Y’all gonna are gonna keep fuckin’ around with me and turn me back to the old me!”

-Kevin

P.S. Hug anyone, by the end of the day, who once threw a pizza party for you.

All over the news there is a story about several Catholic women trying to become ordained as priests. Catholic canon law prohibits female ordination into the priesthood. That’s the rule. If they want to follow a different rule then they’re not playing the same game. If your personal rules for checkers call for a chainsaw and dictates that whichever player has evacuated his/her bowels most recently always wins on Tuesdays (the Tuesday checkers shit addendum) then you’re not playing checkers. You know how I can tell? I know many if not all of the rules for checkers.

Luckily for humankind, one problem that most people face today is that they’ve been exposed to rational thought and the idea that proof is valuable when it comes to a belief. But this means that more and more religious people all the time are forced to confront certain aspects of their religion that they do not agree with. They have a few choices:

1. They can ignore the conflict. (unwise)
2. They can adjust their personal belief to allow for the discrepancy (stupid)
3. Or they can conclude that perhaps this is not the religion for them.

Science is successful because it allows for mistakes. It wants to find mistakes, learn from mistakes, and rid itself of mistakes. Christianity is successful because it threatens members and non-members alike with punishment for disobedience and demands large amounts of their money for no good reason. It has absolutely no intention of doing anything with mistakes other than hiding them or denying them vehemently. Doing anything else would suggest that god is flawed.

When you find yourselves at odds with your religion you should consider refraining from asking it to change. It’s not going to want to. Instead, you should consider asking yourself to change.

The Vatican has said that, by their actions, these women are separating themselves from god. I don’t agree with the statement in its true meaning because I don’t believe in god. I do agree with the spirit of the statement because I agree that these women, by their selfishness, are isolating themselves from an institution that is presumably important to them. There aren’t female priests in Catholicism. Petty disputes like this are the reason there are almost 40,000 denominations of Christianity! That is ludicrous. No wonder it’s so popular – there are so many flavors it’s hard to not get some in your mouth.

My argument is not based on the idea that women should not be Catholic priests. It’s based on the idea that humans should not be Christians.

Side note about faith:

Occasionally you may find yourself debating religion or philosophy with another person. I know I have. When it comes to faith I tell people I have no faith. I know this because I am resourceful enough to think for myself and also research things for myself. Due to this personal quality I happen to know the actual definition of faith. A great definition is this:

The mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without proof supporting the claim.

People have told me that I do have faith. I dispute this because I don’t believe anything without some kind of evidence. I can’t help it. These people invariably say something like,

“You have faith that a chair will hold you up when you sit in it.”

What’s funny about this is that someone told them to say it. You can tell. They never actually thought about what they’re saying. I do not have faith that a chair will support me. I believe based on personal experience that a chair will support me. I also know that I could be wrong and that the chair could collapse. I’m not very stupid.

Let it be known henceforth that:

Carlos Mencia is not funny – and he never was.

Carry on.

You may not believe this, but if you work in a grocery store they will actually let you get on the intercom and scream about ground round while using words like “folks.”

I am on a plane. I learned that one downside to being a vegetarian is that on a plane they don’t distinguish between vegan and vegetarian. While everyone was enjoying their brownie desserts I nibbled on my unidentified fruit dessert between sniffles and boohoos. Planes go high. I think I’m over Utah right now. Either Utah or Nevada. Tokyo is 5374 miles away. I switch planes there. We are travelling at a height of 34000 which I believe is almost 6 miles straight up (or down…) We are going 539 miles per hour which is fast. According to the information I’m getting it is -52 degrees outside which is too cold. I disapprove. That’s 84 degrees below freezing. Dear god. Do yourself a favor and never live 6 miles above Nevada. You’ll hate yourself.

So I watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith on the in flight entertainment after finally getting to see a few episodes of Friends instead of Charlie Sheen’s new sitcom which I didn’t really like. I thought about reading but I’m in a little bit too much of a daze to read. It’s 5:35 pm at home but it’s 2:35 pm here. Right now here is apparently the northwestern coast of Canada very close to Alaska. and by the way, we’re now at 36,000 feet and it is minus 74 degrees farenheit just about 8 feet from my elbow. You might want to reconsider your decision to uproot your family and relocate to 6.something miles about Alaska. Just to stress this point, I am currently above a glacier… and that’s at sea level. I think there are more Japanese people on this plane than Americans. Some of the American flight attendants speak Japanese. Maybe they can teach me to say, “I’ll trade you this shredded banana apricot thing for your chocolate cake” in Japanese. I was just glancing back up at the earlier sentences and I could have sworn I saw the word boobs. I’m ready for dinner. Oh, hey look at that. They look like they may be preparing some food. Some babies scream. My ass hurts. Adam Sandler movies talk about McDonald’s alot. Some people call random facts “factoids.”

I have a layover in Tokyo. The wireless internet connections here are not free of charge like at DFW. I cannot check myspace like I wanted, so I am continuing to type in notepad for later posting. It is daytime here. I think it is about 5:00 PM on Tuesday here. In Dallas it is 3:06 AM on Tuesday. I have not seen darkness in almost a whole day because we followed the sun here. It is strange when you’ve had random naps on a plane and it never got dark and you were given food every 3 and a half hours because I don’t feel like it’s 3 AM.

Somebody owes me a bottle of Ketchup. After hours of arguing over the proper handling and care of condiments you fucking ruined my fucking ketchup. You never thought of that did you?

Last night when I got home from having fun I must have been drunk, but I did not think that I was. It was kind of a blur and for some reason I was thinking that some people were on their way over. There was no reason for me to think this. I thought, I better go get into bed because these people may want to sleep, and if they do, they’ll want the couch. Again – no one was coming over and there was no indication from anyone that they were even considering it. I think I may have even left the door unlocked so the imaginary visitors could get in. So, I grabbed around the room at stuff that I thought I would want near me as I slept and threw them in the bed and promptly got in it. I had a dream that I was at Sunny and Matt’s house and that, even though I have never smoked cigarettes, I could take a huge freaking drag off of one and then exhale an unbelievable cloud of smoke in a breath that lasted forever. I awoke at sometime between 6 and 8 am sober and thinking that some people might actually be asleep in the living room. I got up and snuck into the living room to see if anyone was there. Nope. I then walked to the couch and lied down and immediately passed out. I then slept until around noon, which I never do anymore. I got up and kind of looked around a bit – still no one there. I couldn’t find the phone and thought it might be in the bed. I went to the bedroom to see if it was there. I didn’t see anything at first but then lifted to pillow to expose 1 cordless phone, 1 mobile phone, and 1 can of air freshener. I found this highly amusing.

When I am asleep or just awakened my thoughts are not normal. I have difficulty with simple concepts such as:

language, vision, alphanumerical character recognition, time perception, serenity, and common sense

I have noticed recently that I have trouble with short term memory once I have fallen asleep. If I am on the phone with someone just before falling asleep I wake up thinking that the phone call never ended and that I should look for the phone because the person on the other end is waiting for me to resume the conversation. Also, if someone is over to my residence and leaves just before I fall asleep I will wake up thinking that they are still there.

I’m not certain how much I still sleep walk or peer out of windows in my sleep anymore. I knock my teeth together and talk in my sleep. I hate waking up and finding myself already in a mode close to paranoia over something and running around the house looking outside and talking to no one. It’s like I just wasn’t there while my body was getting up really worried about something. Some of the people I have lived with can testify about this.

Anyone who knows me or my friends very well knows that we invariably report strange happenings that occur during trips to public restrooms upon returning to the table, bar stool, etc. They may also know that at least two companies I’ve worked for have had a large number of male workers who, judging by the bodily noises they frequently produce from the stall, must be on a strict diet of chili and ex-lax®.

Today something quite different happened. I’m very sensitive to the activities that take place while I am in a public restroom. Today I went to the closest restroom and it was full. So I went to a different one downstairs. There was some bullshit going on in a stall. I don’t know what was happening in there, but I will describe what it must have been:

First a Twinkie
® was opened. In a panic the owner realized it was not Twinkie® Time and desperately wanted to re-close the package. However, instead of calmly folding the plastic wrapper’s edge shut, the person in question devised a devious plan. A pair of gloves was hastily fashioned from the sports page. Then using only these new paper accessories, a yardstick, and a blind-fold he began violently trying to re-seal the package in a fecal fit of rage… for several minutes.

I was at the urinal trying not to think about it. Keep in mind that I have no evidence that this is what was happening other than the sounds emanating from his stall. I can say, though, that the offender had enough sense to wait for me to leave the restroom before he exited his irrational Hostess® battlefield. By the time it was all over I kind of missed the chili and laxative crowd in a way.