Severed

There has to be almost a thousand people in the room, yet he feels more alone than ever.  Looking around at the smiling faces, both genuine and forced, at the laughter of women and men, old and ever young, he understands what it is all supposed to portray.  But he does not connect.  He never connects.  Whatever tenuous threads might have existed in some distant past have long since been severed.  Perceived toughness, even heroism, is nothing more than other people's desire, their primal need, to project something, anything, on to the empty shell of his emotions.  They fear the dark and silent vacuum that truly resides inside him without even knowing that it exists.

Once again he seeks out the deliberate and time-worn mental switch; the mask appears.  He enters in to the crowd and nobody suspects.

Tea is Making Me Nauseous

This country is completely, totally insane.

At this point I am fully expecting President Palin in 2012 just because people apparently have no mind of their own. They bow to whatever the media feels is the money making story, accepting it as the real majority.

It only comes down to one thing:  eyeballs on webpages, newspapers and news channels, and ears on radio stations.  Whatever gets the most will be what gets force-fed to us. 

Sanity has left the building.

Thankuverramuch.

[Listening to "Citizen Erased" - Muse]

The 2010 Denver Auto Show

M-B SL65 Black Series, originally uploaded by ThomasWalker.

My Dad and I went to the 2010 Denver Auto Show today. He wanted to look at some options to replace his car and settled (probably) on a Subaru Outback - which is basically the Colorado state car. I took photos of cars a little more interesting than that though.

Click the photo to go to my Flickr photo set.

Too Good To Not Share

Thanks to Neil Gaiman (again) for linking this in his Journal:



How can you not smile after this?

You know you can't keep lettin' it get you down
And you can't keep draggin' that dead weight around.
If there ain't all that much to lug around,
Better run like hell when you hit the ground.

When the morning comes.
When the morning comes.

You can't stop these kids from dancin'.
Why would you want to?
Especially when yor already gettin' yours.
'Cause if your mind don't move and your knees don't bend,
well don't go blamin' the kids again.

When the morning comes.
When the morning comes.

Let it go, this too shall pass.
Let it go, this too shall pass.

Let it go, this too shall pass.
(You know you can't keep lettin' it get you down. No, you can't keep lettin' it get you down.)

When the morning comes!

We the Consumers of the United States...

We the Consumers of the United States, in Order to form a less screwed-up Union, re-establish Justice (for most), insure plausible domestic Tranquility without nuking the rest of the planet, provide for the common sense in defence, uplift the people from Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Perceived Freedom™ to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish that the Government and The Banks have taken a giant Constitutional on the United States of America.

----------
When are government and The Banks going to realize that without We The Consumers (abbr. WTC....go figure) are the ONLY reason for their existence?  When are asshats like Jim Bunning going to stop thinking with their ego and start thinking for the whole country (I can't expect them to think of the whole world...he couldn't find it on a globe)? When are the Democrats going to stop caving in before the fight starts?  When are the banks going to stop and think where their giant damn bonuses are going to come from if there are no workers left to make money to put in banks?

Let's face it: we have lost manufacturing to China. We are losing product design to China and India.  Japan and Europe make, for the most part (Toyota's current problems stem from trying to outgrow GM too fast, which is ironic because all they really had to do was wait), better cars and manage their companies sensibly. We are going to lose our education (the last bastion of American Ingenuity) to people too selfish to vote for a school bond because "I don't have any kids in the school district", and to college fees that are just slightly shy of banker bonuses.

That will leave us as nothing more than what we really are already: Consumers.  I think it's time the Government and The Banks recognized this.  Why is the Consumer Confidence Index down?  Because WTC don't have any damn money in our pockets to spend!  Why is that?  The Banks have cut off credit for jobs at companies smaller than the likes of IBM, Boeing, and GM...oh wait...scratch that one too.  People have spent their "savings", cut up their maxed-out credit cards, and are now scrounging to buy basic necessities and to decide which pet gets fed this week - and they are the ones that still have jobs.  Ok, yes, there are people who shouldn't be spending $200 a month on cell phones or cable TV instead of food and clothing but WTC have to accept that we're all in this together.  Small to medium companies who aren't cash fat and debt free stand zero chance of making it through this recession without credit, but there's none to be had. 

In fact, I'm betting bankers now get bonuses for weeding out the poor credit risks.  One way or another they will find a way to pat themselves on the back while kissing each other's asses at the same time.  It may as well be Banque du Soleil with that kind of flexbility.  Trickle-down economics is the worlds biggest joke on WTC.  It trickles all the way down to the mid-level bankers and the Washington lobbyists.

Here on Main Street "trickle" is the appropriate adjective for our incomes (I haven't had a raise in two years and made in fact 13% less last year than the year before...at the same job.  And don't get me started on bonuses).  How exactly most people in this country are getting by is no mystery - they aren't.  There are no savings, no luxuries, less travel, "staycations" (I will maim whoever invented that word), and no optimism about the future.

The government and The Fed (the other villain in this recession) are telling us that the recovery is starting....as long as you are a Bank!

It is way past time to do something about it.  I already bank at a local credit union.  Anyone reading this should seriously consider pulling out of their Big Bank and finding a local credit union to join.

I considered starting a website to try and get this in to something larger but I don't have the money.

Yes I am angry.  You should be too - this is YOUR country!

[listening to: "we are all sheep" - by the voice in my head]

Shattered

Sometimes when you think the world is crashing down around you, it's just the sound of the glass walls of your cage.

[listening to: "True Faith" by New Order]

It occurs to me that....

...there's a lot of irony when I play games on my television and then go to my computer to watch a TV weather forecast.

I just finished watching "Doctor Who: The Waters of Mars" and I thought it was brilliant.  Having watched this show since I was old enough to know what a TV was it just keeps getting better and better in this new incarnation.

Yet even in this form they tip their hats to the past.  The sound of the "cloister bell" from 1981's Logopolis was immediately recognizable, and signals the coming change of lead actor as the character nears his death.  The fact that 1981 was also the year we moved from England to Denver makes it have even more of an impact.

I was a worried eleven year old because I thought I may never see my favorite show again!  Luckily the technology of Star Wars, Star Trek, and Doctor Who all came to the rescue as computers, the internet, streaming media, global communications and instant access to vast amounts of data.  The word "if" was used in "Logopolis" a lot too...I.F. became Information File which was a simulated online instruction manual in the Tardis to help save the day in that story.  Now we don't think twice when we go online to look up how to do something, make something, get something or fix something.

Strong memories indeed.

And yes, I know....I am a geek...I hope that's ok with you.

[Listening to: David Bowie "Life on Mars?" Which was also the title of a paper I wrote in college that I was accused of plagiarizing but easily proved it was my original work. I got an A and the professor congratulated me for my writing.]