Convenience

News flash....things are too convenient. Big surprise, I know, but its true. Cell phones, online check-in, online bill pay, online customer service, automated customer service, 411 and the list can go on. We have forgotten how to deal with people. We send text messages rather than make a phone call. E cards rather than a real card. I wrote in a card the other day for my wife and I started getting writers cramp after the first sentence. Is it bad when the muscles used to grasp a pen and write begin to atrophy?

Remember when you had to call the operator to get information, and they actually gave it back to you in their own voice? Now it's by robot. With the volume of convenience that we are provided, we sure do get impatient. When your cell phone locks up, how often do you say, "COMEEEE ONNNNNNNNNNNN," willing the message or phone call to go through? Forget that the request is being sent into space and has to return. Remember rotary dials on the phone? You get all excited to get a phone number, see two zeros and then frown knowing that calling this person is going to require at least 10 minutes.

I saw an electric pepper gringer at Bed, Bath and Beyond the other day. When did twisting your wrist become such a headache? The small bones in the wrist were made to do that action. Now we are just too lazy to grind, let alone shake the pepper. I bet if there were Bloody Mary's abound, no one would have a hard time shaking the Tobasco bottle....even if it were in the same motion.

If you tore the phone book page on accident, it was a pain in the ass because you had to wait a year to get another one. Now, we get 4 phone books a week, whether we want them or not. ::PLOP::...there it is in a plastic bag. DEX, DORX, DOTZ, and some other company, providing me an unsolicited copy of how people and business should be put together. It is the ultimate tree killer. But we needed them before. Now this service is an inconvenience. Those were the days.

These are just a couple of observations. Definitely a rant....but sometimes it blows me away how convenient we have it, and how impatient we get when the conveniences provided don't quite fit to our standards.

Finally

Ok, so here goes.

Mark McGwire should not be in the Hall of Fame. I think, however, we should forgive him, mostly because no matter how much we chastise him for becoming 200% larger than most humans, he will forever and always have an acne scarred turkey neck. I find it funny that he came out and admitted using steroids. Its like Lindsay Lohan coming out and saying she is a coke whore, or Kate Gosslien's vagina was an Asian Baby Gatlin gun. No shit Sherlock. True, steroids cannot help you hit a baseball, except for the fact HGH makes old muscles and tendons required for the eyes to behave as though you are 20 years younger. Your reaction time is faster, your bat speed is faster, your force is massive compared to, for example, Jamie Moyer. So don't pretend to fool anyone with the statement "I got this gift from the man upstairs." The only truth to that statement is if McGwire was living in the BALCO basement. Remember when Brady Anderson (Baltimore Orioles lead off hitter) hit 50+ home runs one year and then disappeared off the face of the Earth? When you go from averaging 15 home runs and being 6'2" 195 pounds, and having a full head of hair, to hitting 52 home runs, growing an inch and a half and gaining 35 pounds and going BALD when you are in your 30's...there is a good chance that either (A) your were abducted by aliens and probed anally, or (B) you took some sort of performance enhancing drugs. Either way, disappearing off the face of the Earth makes sense.

The Hall of Fame is reserved for people whose performance was so amazing, they were better than anyone else who played the game. Pete Rose gambled. So what? OoooOoooooohhh noooooooo!!! Better ban him for life. Forget he earned the nickname 'Charlie Hustle." Forget the heart during playoff runs. Forget barrelling over a catcher in an All-Star game, playing at 110% even if it was just for show. Forget the fact he is the ALL-TIME HITS LEADER! Yes, let's ban that guy. Let's let Steve Howe keep playing after admitting he snorted more cocaine than Amy Winehouse. If anyone needs a reprieve, it's Pete Rose. He admitted he gambled...GAMBLED. Shit, we all gamble in one way or another. A lifetime ban? Really? Gambling on games, even ones he is playing or coaching in should not require wearing a DOUCHE cap the rest of your life. That should be reserved for special players...like Barry Bonds.

Hey Barry....do me a favor and just come out and admit the clear and cream were not a band in the 70's. Bullshit you didn't know what they were...unless you just like having strange men, or even men you trust rubbing you down with foreign shit. Maybe that is what you are trying to hide. You are as queer as a $3 dollar bill. I know lots of gay people. I have some gay friends. Come out of the closet, bro. It's socially acceptable now. Hell, some gay couples can now legally get married. Stop hiding. Or is it the excessive growth hormone is causing rapid bone growth in your face and head? One size helmet fits all does not quite pertain to you, does it? Forfeit your home run records....all of them. Be a man, the man you claim you are, and atone for being a phuckstick. I don't care who you are. God did not make it possible for an athlete to get better as they get older. You, my friend, can hit a baseball. Fine. That is not being debated. However, you have cheated. If you were in a different country, you would be drawn and quartered; your body strew about the 4 corners and hung in effigy as a reminder that you, to, can suffer from gigantism. Medically speaking it is obvious you cheated. Of course, I can't say the same about Rafael Palmeiro. Unless what he took was supposed to make him look like an accountant or a porn star from the 80's.

We finally got to learn, on the record, on of baseballs largest bodies, and one of the smallest heads, was cheating when he broke Roger Maris' homerun record. That's great you apologized to the Maris family. Not sure what it means. You seem sincere and contrite when speaking to Bob Costas. Although I have to admit, Bob Costas, at least in stature, reminded me of Macaulay Culkin in Home alone. He makes Dr. Ruth seem like the Jolly Green giant. If anyone needed steroids, it's Bob Costas. Not to be libelous, but it's true. Getting off topic here. The next thing you need to do is foreit your homeruns from 1993-2000...all of them. Accept it as your final punishment for cheating. Then, and only then, can you be considered for the Hall of Fame, enshrined in Storage room B as best of the Steroid Era. Hell, you can start, then endorsing Stridex. Just like Tiger Woods can endorse Cialis or Trojan.

Even cheaters can help sell to this consumer driven world.

Questions....

I really don't know where this is going, and I may or may not even publish it. There has been, however, something gnawing in my mind. I can't put my finger on it. I figured writing it down might make some sense of it.

I originally started this blog as a way to vent life's frustrations. I put things into perspective for myself that, when others read, my life's trial and tribulations brought laughter and joy to others. Sometimes my venting got out of hand. Some people got upset. Some people, maybe all of you, think I need to seek some help or get some medication. I went to a therapist once. Once. I won't go again. Although the circumstances of that visit were bullshit (too long a story to talk about and NOT worth the effort) my beliefs on the issue still stand. So here I am two paragraphs in and nowhere closer to untangling my cerbral fingers, grasping onto something that needs to unravel.

I am going to start writing something. I will be turning into en eBook if I do anything with it at all. I don't really want to talk specifics about the material that will be contained within the virtual paqes, but I can tell you that it is something I have been "working" on for the better part of my adult life. I have started and stopped so many time for so many stupid reasons that I cannot even count them all, nor give a real genuine reason as to why. There comes a point in one's life, however, that you begin to question the legacy you will leave behind. What will the life I have lived teach? What will I leave behind for others to draw upon when life gets difficult? Have I done, essentially, the things God has wanted me to do? There are so many questions, doubts, fears....I am not sure what it is I am left on this Earth to do.

It's late....and there is a big day ahead tomorrow. School at my age is draining. More later...

FYI

This blog is all over the board. Some people like it. Some people don't. Some will leave comments or email me and say they laughed and cried all at once. It runs the "depth spectrum." Some posts are shallow, some middle and some deep. I am not an angel and there are some posts in here that aren't exactly clean. I have lost some readers, more or less because of this. So, be forewarned that one post you might read will make you think I am a saint...soon to be followed by a serious WTF??? Enjoy and I hope you come back again and again.