Welcome to the Post-Apocalyptic World!

Ok, this post might be a little high-brow, but I'll keep it short and try to throw in a dirty joke somewhere.  

So, the rapture happened.  Or some would say that it didn't.  Actually, everyone says that it didn't and the one who predicted it said he made a mistake...again.  It's now going to happen on Oct 21st.  Mark your calendars for more disappointment!

Well, I would like to make a couple arguments about why it did happen. 

1.  On May 21st at 6pm local time, everyone in this world had to deal with the consequences of the lives they had lived up until that point.  Boom!  Welcome to the post-apocalyptic world biatch!  Depending on your life choices, you are now living in a heaven, hell or purgatory of sorts.  It wasn't what you expected, right?  Well, who said it was going to be anything different?  This leads me to the second argument...

2.  The apocalypse happened on May 21st, but it also happened a bunch of times before and will happen again.  According to ancient Indian and Egyptian philosophy, the universe is unlimited on time, but limited in material (stuff that's in it).  Therefore eternal recurrence.  Simply put, the universe repeats itself and we live the same life over and over again because there isn't enough stuff to make it different (at least in any significant way).  So, out of the infinite number of times we've lived a life similar to this, a world may have ended on May 21st, just not this current iteration.

3.  According to God, the apocalypse happened.  It just hasn't happened to us yet.  God is the beginning and the end, His understanding of time and space is much more superior than to ours.  Our conception of linear time is an oversimplification to cope with our dilemmas in causality and morality.  May 21st may have been the end of the world, we just don't have access to God's calendar or the capacity to understand when that is according to our calendar.  

I realize these arguments are weak and essentially argues for a this-world based outlook.  What if we are already living in a type of heave/hell/purgatory?  What if moments of high-anxiety or stress is a moment in hell?  It is temporary, but not necessarily non-eternal, because we will face stress or anxiety again. Same with those happy moments. 

Anyway, this Harold Camping guy has a fixation on needing to know when the end will happen (I'd be interested in a Freudian or Lacanian psychoanalysis of this guy).  As a believer, is he feeling impotent about making the world better and only looks forward to knowing when he'll leave it?  Why does he need this release so bad?  This may be borderline heretical, but I promised a sex joke so I'm going to use a sex analogy.  Camping sees life on earth as a one night stand with an ugly person.  He has little to no intention of staying any longer than he has to.  He plots and analyzes to figure out when his exit is.  He thinks he's gonna bone a supermodel for the rest of his life if he can just get out of this fugly's apartment.  The better outlook is probably to just enjoy the time you have with a special person, it's a gift after all*. 

I believe that faith, no matter what it is in, is something that supports (the self, the community, environment, society, the world) and fills the faith-holder with hope and happiness, not this dread-spreading disdain for the rest of humanity and the world.  Friedrich Nietzsche used the idea of eternal recurrence to argue for a life and world loving outlook.  It's kinda like the movie Groundhog Day.  Bill Murray's character thought he was in hell until he learned to embrace it and found himself in a kind of heaven.  I think any "good" deity would want it that way.   

*I am not implying that sex is a commodity that can or should be gifted. 

Phonetiquette

I think at this point everyone has encountered or been the culprit of inappropriate cell phone usage in social situations*.  It still seems a bit unclear on what is the appropriate protocol for using your cell phone when in the presence of others, professional and casual.  

We've all said/heard/thought things like: 

• If talking to that person is so important, why aren't you with them instead?
• Do you seriously need to facebook status update that we're hanging out?  Does that make it real?  
• If you look at that phone one more time I'm never inviting you over for dinner ever again.
• Checking your phone to see IF you have an alert every 10 minutes does not make you interesting, it makes needy and boring.  

Well, you get the idea.  Mobile phones have become a necessary part of our personal and professional lives, but it's important to maintain our ability to interact in person. So, I've come up with a few things that may help curb the excessive lack of, what I call, Phonetiquette.

In a date situation, if the accompanying date has stated they are expecting an important phone call then a little forgiveness is permissible.  If phone-checking is chronic and consistent:

• Go to the bathroom every time they do.  
• Yawn
• If you're a girl and you're fairly sure he's gonna be paying for dinner, make a drinking game out of it and order a shot every time.
• Text them the date is over (this can be done on one of your many trips to the bathroom).
• If you're a girl, talk about sex and how it's been a while and then pretend to get a text and tell him that you have to go meet a "friend".  

In social/group situations:

• If someone is expecting a call and leaves the phone on the table, ask them if it's alright if you put your penis on the table, because you're expecting to have sex eventually (this could potentially be used on a date too).
• Ask if you can see their phone and then stick it into your pants and say:  "I'm not giving it back until I'm satisfied!"
• Rip the phone out of their hands and yell, "You're smothering it!"
• Mimic them until they stop.  Adding exaggerated commentary helps: "I'm Mike.  I'm sooo busy and smart and professional that I don't have common decency or an adequately sized penis.."  Something along those lines.  

In a professional/work situations, I think phones don't really belong in meetings at all.  Assistants and coworkers can come and get you in pressing situations, otherwise, a good worker should have most everything squared away before entering into a meeting.  

I'm sure there are more subtle ways of improving the phonetiquette of others, but sometimes these suggestions may be necessary.  It's important to remember to actually engage people and laugh out loud with them rather than typing "lol" to them. 

*Sorry to my readers in 3rd world countries.  At least you have the internet, otherwise you wouldn't be able to read this would you?

Job Wanted

I should be scouring the internet for jobs while putting together my resume, but I decided, for the time being, to blog about it instead. 

So I spent about 5 years doing something I didn't particularly like. And after 5 years of it, the thought of going back to that job makes me nauseous.  Seriously, a little stomach acid gurgles into my mouth.  Anyway, now I have the freedom to go after whatever job I want, but that's only half of it, isn't it?  They have to actually want to hire me.  I've been thinking about how I can do that and here are some ideas I came up with to put into my resume. 

Objective, is a section that I heard is a little outdated, but I think I could make it interesting and compelling.  I was thinking of putting "To reach mind-blowing levels of AWESOMENESS".  Though it may not work because I'm not sure if "awesomeness" is a correct word.  Having been an English major, that might work against me. 

The other statement I thought about putting there is: "To give 101.618% in every fucking thing, particularly this job."  First, I used the F-word, so they'll think I'm intense and aggressive, a real game changer and they'll want to hire me.  Second, I'll have to explain it in interview dialogue.

Interviewer:  "So, I see here that you give 101.618%"

Me:  "Fuck yeah...I do."

Interviewer:  "Why is it 1.618%?"

Me:  "It's the golden number, it's magic.  So I bring 100% AND magic.  If you don't hire me I'll hex you and eat your babies."

The interviewer then hires me on the spot not just because he's scared of my hex and his babies getting eaten, but he doesn't want a guy like me working for his competition.  I bring the mother-effin' magic, bitch!

Skills section ideas:

-Possesses over 100 water-cooler icebreakers.

-Can spell "possesses" properly.

-Fluent in 7 languages.  2 are alien, 1 is alien sign language, 1 is imaginary, 1 is an imaginary alien sign language, Korean and English. 

-Bakes*

-Is generous with baked goods**

-Is circumcised so I am religiously flexible.

-Prefers to watch pornography in the privacy of own home.***

-Willing to submit to drug-testing, but really you should be testing the drugs for Michael use. 

-It only takes one of me to change a light bulb.

-The other person in the waiting room told me they like to steal stuff from work.

-Is not a tattle-tale

-Your secretary was playing Angry Birds the entire time I was out there.

-Plays golf well enough so as not to make you regret inviting me to play and not well enough to hurt your pride.

-Almost never really quite seriously to a detrimental degree procrastinates.****

Well, that's all I got so far.  Let me know if some of them shouldn't be on my resume or have better suggestions. 

*I don't really bake, but I'm willing to take it up

**I'm probably gonna have to bring stuff to the interview to make this one convincing

***I'm sure bosses really appreciate this one.

****It's gonna be hard to make that one convincing if I get hired...

Thoughts from a procrastinating mind

Well, Osama Bin Laden is dead.  Though I do have a suspicion that he was captured alive so he could be interrogated secretly.

Bin Laden was the symbol of America's War on Terror and now that he's dead, who will take his place?  I nominate Dick Cheney to be the new face of the War on Terror.  His mug scares the shit out of me.  What I'm getting at is how does this affect the conception of our war against terror?  OBL kinda was the yin to our yang.  Good against Evil.  Batman versus Joker, etc.  It begs the question, was killing him really the most effective way of resolving the difference between America and Bin Laden's extremism?  I'm sure the news analysts will be talking about these things for months on end. 

Well, we all know this war against terrorism was going to be a long war, possibly unending.  And just because OBL is dead it does not mean it's the end.  When it started, I didn't know what to be more frightened of, the terrorism or that the U.S. was beginning a war that might never end.  Bravo to our troops, intelligence operatives and the President for this accomplishment.

I haven't really read much of the details of what happened.  All I know is that some bad-ass American soldiers flew in on helicopters and brought the pain.  Cool stuff.

Hollywood, you guys got a movie in the works yet?  Some suggestions:  Michael Bay, Vin Diesel, Jason Statham, Dwayne Johnson(The Rock), a whole lotta explosives, some exotic cars and hot chicks (I realize that the last two might not fit into the storyline, but I have faith in Michael Bay).

President Obama, Bush Sr. lost reelection even after winning Desert Storm, so you better keep on truckin'.

Did anyone watch the speech Seth Meyers gave at the White House Correspondents Dinner?  Was he just not that funny or was Donald Trump just killing the buzz in that room?  I don't think he even smirked once. 

The more I think about it the more it seems true.  Poetry is masturbation with a pen.