It occurred to me today as I was looking for a place to plug up my laptop, how inconsiderate people can be when it comes to seating arrangement.  As I am just as entitled to a seat as they are.  But if you walk into a building at Pellissippi State Technical Community College,  you are more likely to find a seat in the floor than in a chair or bench.  For God(s) sake this is a not pre-civil rights issue, I am a citizen of the United States of America.  This is a terrible injustice and inconsiderate of others around you.

So students, staff and faculty should take note:

• Students:  A bench is not a bed… (So, don’t lay down there!  Go home!)
• All:  Everyone needs a seat… (I don’t bite or smell bad.  Get the @#$% over it!)
• All:  On a side note, I can’t get out to my services to check my e-mail.  (It’s not me looking at porn or contracting viruses.)
• All:  Also on this same note, why is the infrastructure for the password protected sections of the site so hard to use?  (I am relatively computer savvy,  I have issues using this… Maybe you should look into hiring Catalyst IT and Catalyst X, they work for me.  With that said they could probably help make the design appealing and functional.)
• Staff and Faculty:  I realize to purchase applicable materials is a necessary evil, but why do they have to cost so much? (Many of my friends and colleagues are quite successful using online sources to study our information when we have problems.  I realize that not all of this information is valid, but with some reasoning I am sure this can be resolved.)

In consideration of these things, maybe atleast one person out there is listening.  That makes two, which won’t get us anywhere.  But if we could get three people to talk about these things, then they will know its a movement.  That’s what it is folks the Inconsiderate Insubordination movement, and you should sing it loud and proud if you want to make changes and stuff.

(Conclusion is loosely based from Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.)

666th post

  So I salute you Mark,  this beer is on you!

It’s no big secret that Obama has made the point several times that, “America is the greatest country in the world! And if we stand together, we can make a change!”

The more amusing part about Mr. Obama is the fact that he equates the DNC with the Labor movement found in British Commonwealths.

The idea behind the labor movement is that you don’t walk alone. You’re not by yourself. And each of us are vulnerable by ourselves. Each of us are subject to tragedy and disaster

There’s something very sinister about this to me, because the Labour Party is wholly and entirely made up of Socialists. The Democratic party has been fighting the Socialist stigma for years, yet Mr. Obama comes back with this sort of dialogue?

Socialism believes in Ministry Owned Enterprises and Government Owned Entities. Socialism requires that all workers pull together for the common good. as it insues that everyone is compensated no matter their input to a job. Socialism is what happened to Himmler, and even worse, Hitler.

Socialism = Bad.

Democracy = Good.

Hundreds of other countries already know this.

Why don’t we?

Maybe we should round up all the Canadians and put them into concentration camps just because they’re Canadian. It’s not like they actually contribute to anything but the Florida economy anyway, so who would notice?

     I slept.

     Until 8:30AM I slept.

     That hasn’t happened in a long time. 

     There’s a better sleep-aid….

     “Take one Wildcat as needed for insomnia.”

     I look forward to filling that prescription again….

     Also works for depression, pain, mood swings, anexiety, etc. …

     And yes, I admit, I’m addicted…

     For whatever reason, the house I’m in now has some pretty bad wiring.  It’s a relatively new house — built in the 70’s, perhaps early 80’s — and shouldn’t have the problems it does. 
     Unfortunately, that’s one of the things you’ll always get into when you own a home.  There are quirky things about most every house.  In this one, the fuse box may even be a bit overloaded…

     Last Friday night, I had an overwhelming sense of dread.  I felt like someone close to me was in trouble, and there was nothing I could do.  I was distraught, and I couldn’t shake that feeling.  My car had messed up the night before, and just everything seemed to be going the wrong way.  And what should happen but every time I came into the room and sat down on the bed, the ceiling fan would begin this eerie whining, and shake violently back and forth.
     But it only happened when I came back into the room and sat down on the bed…

     I tested that theory seven or eight times, and finally decided to pull out the voice recorder and leave it running in the otherwise silent room for a few minutes… I mean, a little EVP never hurt anyone, right?

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUQNtpGdSAw)

     And so, two things became obvious:

1. Those weren’t ghosts.  They were telephone signals.  There’s obviously a massive amount of Extremely Low Frequency radiation pointed at this upstairs room from “somewhere,” and somehow, it’s bleeding through.  Perhaps it’s the fault of bad grounding in this house’s wiring, or perhaps having a telecommunications transmitter inadvertently pointed directly at this room is the whole problem with the wiring.
2. The ceiling fan was never mounted straight, and it was extremely loose.  I opened and closed the door each time I moved from the bed, walking into the hallway, and just that amount of air pressure was enough to make the ceiling fan go crazy.  A few twists of the screwdriver fixed the problem, however, it’s still off balance… just not so much that the door makes it appear to be a murder weapon from the afterlife.

     This really made me give a lot more thought to the whole EVP phenomenon.

     Sure, you can make recordings in silence, and end up with all sorts of noises.  Ambient and background noises, wind and air pressure changes and other miscellaneous sounds that you wouldn’t normally notice become amplified.  Since the dynamic range of most microphones is significantly wider than that of the human ear, and the fact that the final recording becomes compressed to fit into an audible bandwidth — not to mention the problems of noise from the internal mechanism on tape recorders and sounds created by digital processing on voice recorders — you end up hearing all sorts of noises that can sound rather ghastly.  It’s the perfect illustration of the old saying, “ghost in the machine.”

     You simply have to take a scientific approach to this sort of thing, otherwise, you’ll end up convincing yourself of all sorts of crazy stuff.  As another old saying goes, “Enough research will tend to support your theory.”

     Inspired by movies like Stir of Echoes, Sixth Sense and White Noise, and entertainment television shows like Ghost Hunters, I know too many people who run around recording EVP.  Most of them are convinced that Ghost Hunters is real, as they’re unable to distinguish the difference between science, pseudoscience and entertainment. 
     These types also totally buy into most of the crazy conspiracy theories going around.

     But, like they’d assuredly tell me … I’m just too cynical… *rolls eyes*

     As for that “feeling of dread” I had Friday night (and through the weekend), I was more than right — in fact, I was dead on, right down to times.  As cynical as I might be, there’s still the fact that I perceive things that I shouldn’t be able to.
     You either get used to that or you don’t.

This is a spin-off of an old e-mail that recently made its way back in my direction.

 Many people in this country have a job.  They receive payment for the work they do.  Then the government steps in a collects a portion of the proceeds they receive.  The government distributes this payment as they see fit.

 In order to get this paycheck, they submit a random urine test to their respective employer.  This is should not be an issue for any law abiding citizen.

 In reality what any citizen of this country should be concerned about are the people who receive a welfare check.  Welfare recipients do not have to pass a random urine test.  Since our government is supposed to be a system of checks and balances, why is there room for this discrepancy?  

 For the most part, United States citizens are quite giving with their money and don’t have a problem doing their part.  It should be no problem for the populous to help a few people back on their feet.

 On the other hand, there is a problem with the people that receive this money who choose to sit around, be unproductive and/or use drugs.  If they have enough money to indulge in these activities, they do not need any monetary assistance.

 The only thing not covered, is who pays for the testing?   Why not have it applied against the balance of the money the recipients of the welfare system receive.  Surely they shouldn’t mind since they are on the receiving end of the bread line anyway.

 Just think, with that money saved maybe we could funnel it into education.  Maybe we could balance the budget?  Who knows?  The possibilities are endless, and perhaps you could employ the people who failed to administer the testing.  Then they wouldn’t have a need for the assistance in the first place.

 The truth be told, this system is outdated.  It was a necessary evil at the time when it was enacted; however legislation is subject to change in order to fit the demands of the present day.  Something needs to be done.  It is only a matter of time till we will make a stand and take action.  Why not make it happen today.

     No, I’m not talking about the electrical ones, which I truly hate because my body happens to be extremely conductive… No, I’m talking about the stars of last summer’s blockbuster movie by the same name.
     They always get big heads after a blockbuster, don’t they?

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtSl3Khf1aE)

     Although, it is amusing seeing Optimus Prime as a street-talking metrosexual…

     [ This was a draft from August 2nd I should have posted. ]

     Around this time two years ago, I went out a girl who was pretty fun.  We went and had dinner, and ended up playing darts for a while.  Just an easy hang-out-and-have-fun kinda night.  It was cool.  It was actually the first date I’d had that wasn’t a total friggin’ disaster.
     She was sweet, she knew how to laugh, and was a pretty damn good dart player, too.

     I didn’t kiss her goodnight.

     But she said she wanted to see me again.  And so, we made plans to meet that Friday night…

     Later that night, she called me to ask why I didn’t kiss her.
     “I wanna take it slow,” I told her.  “I don’t kiss… just, well, not until I get to know someone.”
     “Aww,” she replied.  “Did you like me and you’re trying to do the right thing?”
     “I had a great time, and I’m afraid I went the normal route, we’d end up going too quick and screwing everything up.  Ya know what I mean?”
     “Absolutely!” she resonded, ecstatically.  “I wanna take things slow, too.”

     We made plans for Friday at 8PM.

     Friday came around, and we were supposed to get together again.  I was already working in West Knoxville, so I called her at 7:30PM and said, “Hey, you hungry?  We could maybe leave a little earlier and go grab something to eat.”
     “How did you know I as off work?” she asked.
     “Uhhh, because we made plans to meet at 8PM?”
     “Yeah… Uhhh,” she stammered.  “I think I’m too tired.”
     “You think?”
     “Yeah, I’m too tired.  Sorry.  Maybe tomorrow.  We can go to Barley’s.”
     “Well, okay.  I was out here anyway, just thought I’d check.”

     The same kinda thing happened twice more.  I got a little pissed off about it.  It didn’t make sense, especially after getting back online and realizing she’d blocked and deleted me from everywhere, wouldn’t answer her phone or anything else.
     I chalked it up to nutjob, and did the Pirate Word for Healing — NEXT!  (Kudos to the Pirate Chicks!)

     So one night, a month later, I’m sitting at Catscratch Jane’s with Diva, Susan, Robyn, Becky, Mitzi and Niki — the pirate chicks — and who should call but my dear stand-up queen.
     “Hey, Mark, I just wanted to see what you were doing!”
     “Hanging out with friends… Why?” I asked.
     “Well, I thought maybe we could go somewhere and hang out.”
     It didn’t take much thought.  “Nah, you stood me up a few times, and no, I don’t think so.”
     Robyn, overhearing the conversation, got a little pissed off and grabbed the phone.  “You stupid bitch!  What the f$#& do you think you’re doing?  I’ll kick your ass, you stupid bitch!  You don’t f$#& with Mark Steel!”
     I wrestled the phone back, but, of course, she’d hung up.

     In June of 2007, dear psycho decided to contact me again via AIM instead of the telephone.

hey nark. how are ya?

Who’s this?

it’s [name deleted]. Just wonderin what yer up to.

Not much.  Just hanging out.

sorry I did what I did a few months ago. wasn’t ready for a realationship. you scared me.

Howso?

you were different.

Howso?

i d’know. you were really sweet. i had too many things on my plate and you knew how to laugh. such a diversion.

Diversion?

fun. really fun. i just wasnt ready. and your hot.

Thanks. But… Okay, what do you want?

sorry if your busy i’ll let you go.

No, it’s cool.  I’m not busy, just wondering…

well i broke up with my boyfriend. just wanted to hang out and maybe get to know you better.

Okay.  Well, what, same place?  Bailey’s?

tommorow night? around 7?

Sounds good.  See ya there!

     But I didn’t bother going.  Instead, some friends and I sat around and laughed about it.  Sure, it was childish, but it was funny.  I figured, hey, it’s the least I can do. 

hey what happened to you tonight?

Huh?

you were supposed to be at bailey’s

Ahh, sorry.  I’m just not ready for a relationship.

what?

Yeah, I have too many things on my plate.  Take care!

asshole!!!

Thanks.  G’nite!

     Tonight, she called me.  Asked if I wanted to meet her at Barley’s.  I said, “Sure, you want me to pick you up, or meet you there, or what?”
     “Well, how far as you?” she asked.
     “Oh, it’ll take me twenty minutes to get there.”
     “Yeah, me, too.  So you wanna just meet there?”
     “Yeah, let’s do that!” I told her.  “Wait around the front door… if you beat me there, I won’t be long!”

     After we hung up, I parked my ass on the bed and died laughing. 

     Haven’t heard from her since.  Wonder if she got the not-so-subtle hint?  *snicker*

     Revenge is sweet.

     It’s no big surprise that with the massive proliferation of Cell Phones that SMS Text Messaging has become so popular.  Myself, I set up server alerts to go to my cell phone, and make sure a couple of e-mail boxes get checked so that I don’t miss an important message.
     But a lot of people use it like Instant Messaging.  Sometimes, that can get pretty funny… especially if they have a wrong number.

     The other day, I got the following text message from an unknown number:

Adam.  Can i use your i.pod *peace&love*

     Now, I could have ended it there, but I was in a mood.  I decided to see what happened…

no.  I hate you.

     I couldn’t resist the urge to mess with whoever it was… I was feeling evil… and thus, it continued…

Wtf! *peace&love*

It’S oVEr! Goodbye.

Omg. You are f&#$in retarded.  Whats your deal? *peace&love*

I told you goodbye.  You’re too needy.  I don’t have time for that shit.

Wtf ever *peace&love*

Bitch.

ok. Adam, we are friends. Wtf happened to you. *peace&love*

     I entertained the though of making it worse, but I started to feel bad.

lol ok I confess…. This is not adam.  You have the wrong number.  Sorry, I couldn’t resist playing with your head.   I’m evil like that.

Wow. Lol.  Who is this? *peace&love*

This is Mark from blogitude.com.  I’ll probably write about this, but I promise to leave your number off.

Well what happened was my friend adam, this is his old number *peace&love*

I got that.  Sorry if i upset you.  I just couldn’t resist.
our motto is… If you can’t laugh at yourself, we’ll do it for you.
But I do have a conscience.  I really was playing and didn’t mean to upset you.

You are really weird *peace&love*

yeah i know.  Twisted.  Old.  Sarcastic.  Take care.

     Part of me wonders how far I could have pushed it. But, I decided better of it, given a little episode that happened to me last year.  Good thing I have a conscience.
     Besides, had it not been for that, I wouldn’t've met my Wildcat, either…

This nifty little project involves you and/or your buddies and a sleepless weekend.  On the Friday, you’re the basics: character, prop, a line of dialogue, and then a genre in for your film.  Within the next 48 hours you movie must be complete and then will be shown in a week at a local theater.

The closest this project has come to home was Nashville, Tn.  The outcome of the project will be shown at the Belcourt Theatre. So without futher ado, here is a trailer of the film Cock.  A tale of drugs, cops, money, sex and lots of laughs along the way.

(Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8GmcSM-JdA)